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Describes motivation process for creativity with emphasis on intrinsic motivation by Corey K Katir

In the blink of an eye, Jimmy Leewardas P-51 Galloping Ghost went from rounding the last turn at National Championship Air Races in Reno to sharply pitching upward, rolling over, and then diving straight down into box seats full of … Continue reading →

A(c) Max Kennerly. The original for this post is Accountability After The National Championship Air Races Disaster at Litigation & Trial.

In the blink of an eye, Jimmy Leewardas P-51 Galloping Ghost went from rounding the last turn at National Championship Air Races in Reno to sharply pitching upward, rolling over, and then diving straight down into box seats full of spectators. Strange as it is to say, there are reasons to be grateful a had his airplane hit the grandstands, there would have been hundreds, not dozens, of injuries.

Flying in general and P-51s in particular have a special place around our firm; Jim Beasley, Sr., was an FAA-certified flight instructor who flew several WWII-vintage planes, including P-51s, and Jim Beasley, Jr., flies his Mustang with a P-51 acrobatic team and with the Air Force Heritage Flight team. (We litigate aviation accidents, too.)

Air shows are a big deal in America a attendance is around 17 million visitors to the 400 or so air shows each year, roughly around the same attendance as the NFL a and, apart from the causal attendees, thereas a sense of community around types of planes, types of shows, and locations. They know the history of the sport; the Ramstein disaster, for one, still lingers in the minds of many in the air show community, and the frequency of fatal and near-fatal crashes is not lost on anyone. The casualty numbers are lower, but they still look more like a major air disaster than a simple crash; Reno will likely take a similar place to Ramstein in the minds of the air show community, and may end the National Championship Air Races, at least in their current form.

As always, when a crash happens, the media attention shifts quickly to the National Transportation Safety Boardas aGo Teama investigation. Maybe itas something about the allure of governmental rapid response teams, or maybe itas the idea that, with an investigation and findings will come some sort of closure. The NTSB is a good organization with talented and dedicated personnel, and itas no stretch to say that NTSB Aviation Accident Reports and other recommendations have saved countless lives, but one thing needs to be understood about the NTSB.

Coincidentally, a few hours before the crash I conducted the deposition of the former fleet operations manager for a company involved in a fatal maritime accident. The NTSB Marine Accident Report recommended that her company areview existing safety management program and develop improved means to ensure that your company’s safety and emergency procedures are understood and adhered to by employees in safety-critical positions.a The fleet operations manager argued that the NTSBas finding that her company had at all contributed to the accident was merely apolitical.a

In one sense, sheas right: the NTSBas findings are apolitical,a in that they are made by the government for the benefit of everyone, rather than made for accountability among those involved in the crash. The NTSB reviews accidents primarily for the purpose of making recommendations for the future and secondarily for determining fault. In contrast, civil litigation exists to determine who should pay for the losses arising from an injury, and thus cases are reviewed by the judicial system primarily for determining fault.

This difference in focus isnat just a matter of word choice. Thereas an entire field of aroot cause analysisa that assesses the way in which accidents and other failures are investigated. Its lessons have been applied to aircraft safety as well, including in the federal regulations governing military aircraft safety, which direct audits towards the cause, not just the symptom, of safety deficiencies.

Thatas not to say the NTSBas process is flawed or that their conclusions are wrong (although itas always disturbing to me how the aparty systema always gives the likely culpable parties a seat at the table but never gives any voice to the victims). Itas just important to understand that they answer a different question a what can we, as a government agency, recommend to prevent this in the future? a from the question asked in a lawsuit: who, if anyone, was responsible?

Tim OBrien Photo - P51 Loss Of Trim TabInitial reports have focused on the trim tab of the Galloping Ghost. A remarkable photo just before the crash taken by Tim OaBrien, himself an air show organizer, shows the plane missing one of its left side trim tab entirely. Still images from video taken of the crash show the trim tab in the process of falling off.

It wouldnat be surprising if the flutter caused the trim tab to break off. (For those unfamiliar with flutter, Mike Danko dug up an old NASA video of trim tab flutter). Thatas a known problem with P-51s; consider this report regarding the P-51 Voodoo Chile at the Reno National Championship Air Races just a couple years ago:

a| Voodoo very abruptly pulled up; however, Hannah didn’t radio a distress call. a| Steve Hinton flew over to take a look Voodoo. “You OK Bob?” called Hinton. “Yea, this thing just popped big time,” replied Hannah. What Hannah didn’t mention is that the g-load from the quick pull-up had caused him to black out. He finally managed to reach the throttle and reduced Voodoo’s power. At that point Hannah radioed that he “(wasn’t) out of it yet,” but he wasn’t thinking clearly. Later, he declared a mayday and made a perfect landing. a| On the ground one could see what cause Voodoo’s problems during the race. The left elevator torque tube failed when the elevator trim fluttered and departed the plane. Fortunately, Bob Hannah’s skill and coolness in the cockpit saved day.

When the trim tab fell off Voodoo, the plane shot upwards and the 10G deceleration force caused Bob Hannah to black out entirely. He regained consciousness at 9,000 feet and, as you can tell from the above, took some time to come back to his senses. You can see pictures of the damage here. It was even the same trim tab. The difference between Voodooas close call and Galloping Ghostas tragedy may have been pure, dumb luck: Voodoo didnat roll after losing the trim tab while Galloping Ghost did.

But that doesnat necessarily mean flutter caused the trim tab to dislodge or that the trim tab was the cause of the accident. Itas quite possible something else caused the Galloping Ghost to climb rapidly, and in that process the flutter developed or the trim tab was damaged. As has been reported, some members of the crowd noticed aa strange gurgling engine noisea before Galloping Ghost pitched upwards.

So where might liability fall? I often say that fatal maritime and aviation accidents rarely happen as the result of a single, unlikely event. Usually, theyare caused by a cascade of failure.

First, there was initially some chatter about the propriety of allowing an a80 year old mana (Leeward was really 74, but a80a somehow ended up being widely repeated) to fly in an air race, but he was among the more highly qualified pilots in the country a including having a third class medical certification certification as of March 2010, which was still valid as of the accident. The question, then, is not if the organizers or other third parties appropriately evaluated his health a he was certified a but rather if he or anyone involved with his flight preparation recognized any physical disabilities that arose after March 2010 and which could have impaired his ability to fly.

Of course, his health is irrelevant if he never became disabled and thereas some other explanation for why his aircraft suddenly climbed, rolled, and dove.

Second, a broken trim tab is obviously a problem, and itas a known weakness in P-51s. Was the plane properly inspected and maintained? Here, there are questions of method and timing. FAR 43.13 requires:

Each person performing maintenance, alteration, or preventive maintenance on an aircraft, engine, propeller, or appliance shall use the methods, techniques, and practices prescribed in the current manufacturer’s maintenance manual or Instructions for Continued Airworthiness prepared by its manufacturer, or other methods, techniques, and practices acceptable to the Administrator, except as noted in ASS43.16. He shall use the tools, equipment, and test apparatus necessary to assure completion of the work in accordance with accepted industry practices. If special equipment or test apparatus is recommended by the manufacturer involved, he must use that equipment or apparatus or its equivalent acceptable to the Administrator.

As Mike Busch summed it up, aThe key to understanding FAR 43.13 is the phrase amethods, techniques and practices.a That phrase refers to how to do something, not when to do something.a Thereas thus not as much federal law for when maintenance should be done, but industry standards a and the general duty of reasonable under negligence law a demand it be done with some frequency. Iad be surprised if someone of Leewardas stature didnat have his planes inspected very frequently, but, in investigating these claims, you often never know what you find. Weave seen aircraft parts sold as anewa that turned out to be patched up parts from the WWII-era.

Third, whenever a plane crashes into a populated area, the choice of route comes under scrutiny. All low-flying planes create a danger of impact (consider, for example, the Ramstein disaster) and the National Championship Air Races has had more than its fair share of fatal crashes and near-misses like Voodoo. It is no stretch to say that it was only a matter of time before one of those accidents ended up happening in the stands. Sure, itas thrilling for the crowd to be up close to the planes as they race, and unsurprising that the organizers would set up the race that way, but the companies making money off the event are charged by law with ensuring the safety of those spectators, including by toning down the thrills just a bit if it makes everyone safer.

So now what? Nine people are dead and dozens are injured, many seriously, many permanently. Lives lost, contributions to families lost, wages lost, and medical care needed. Some tort reformers have complained that, even though most accidents are simple pilot error, every airplane crash results in a flurry of litigation against airplane manufacturers, event organizers, and plane owners and mechanics.

Thereas a reason for that: airplane crashes cause a lot of damage and are rarely a fluke or understandable mistake. They are one of the classic types of situations that our civil litigation system was designed to address.

A rule of thumb in aircraft disaster litigation is: name all involved parties in the complaint. Itas unfortunate, but in general plaintiffs need to sue everyone a from the City that hosted the event, to the organizers of the show, to the owners of the field, to the owner of the plane, the mechanics for the plane, and the pilot of the plane a to ensure that no one is missed and a that a plaintiff doesnat learn, after the statute of limitations has expired, that they sued the wrong party. Thereas no way to know, pre-suit, what the contracts between the parties look like, and no way to know how a court will rule on their various relationships. (Hereas one air show crash case, from California, in which the plaintiffs won against the company and City that managed the airport in front of the trial court only to have that entire part of their case thrown out on appeal.)

Thereas no reason why an injured party canat file a lawsuit before the NTSB investigation concludes a indeed, they usually have to, given how long the investigation takes a but typically those cases take a back seat to the initial interviews and damage assessment. Whatever the NTSB and legal outcome, this crash may spell the end of the National Championship Air Races, at least in their current form. Maybe that’s for the best; if they’re not run in a safe manner, they shouldn’t be run at all.

A(c) Max Kennerly. The original for this post is Accountability After The National Championship Air Races Disaster at Litigation & Trial.

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Margo Dydek, a former WNBA star who played with four teams in the professional women’s basketball league, including the Sparks, died Friday in Brisbane, Australia, a week after suffering a heart attack. She was 37. Cathy Roberts, the operations manager for the Northside Wizards in the Queensland Basketball League, where Dydek was head coach, confirmed her death. The Poland-born Dydek, who was pregnant with her third child, suffered the heart attack on May 19. She collapsed at her home in Brisbane and was put in a medically induced coma. Roberts said that Dydek was at an early stage in her…

flooded street sign

aThe river came up to right where weare sitting, and the waters were more than two feet deep,a Peter Goodwin tells me in the driveway of his ranch-style house perched on the banks of the Balonne River in St. George, a village of 3,500 in eastern Australia. It is a drizzly Sunday afternoon in April, three months after a devastating flood that drenched a landmass the size of France and Germany combined and isolated the town after the rain-swollen river rose to a record 45 feet.

Agricultural areas like St. George were hardest hit by the relentless rains and overflowing rivers that swamped roads, cut off power lines, washed away vineyards and fruit orchards, drowned thousands of head of cattle and other livestock, and covered homes and everything inside them in thick layers of sediment and mud. Shell-shocked residents are still digging out from under the debris.

aThatas the hard part of the floodathe aftermath,a says Goodwin, 60, a crusty, compactly built man with piercing blue eyes and calloused hands who works as an operations manager for the local municipality and has been staying with his grown daughter while he makes his home habitable again. aYou get a lot of help during the flood, but then everyone settles back into their routine. There are a lot of houses down there that are still empty,a he adds, gesturing toward the riverbank. aAnd they will be for a long time to comea…


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