Aviation journalist Mark R. Twombly is a former editor of AOPA Pilot now living in Florida.
They say all politics are local. The same could be said of perceptions. It doesn't matter what people in Washington, D.C., or New York City, or Los Angeles think. What's really important, what affects me most, is what my friends, neighbors, and colleagues perceive. Based on that, I'm feeling pretty good about the prospects for general aviation. Certainly a lot better than I was at the beginning of the year.
I was prepared to adopt a positive attitude for 2002. After all, considering the impact that the events of last September 11 had on general aviation, the new year had to be better, right?
It certainly didn't start out that way. Five days into the year, we suddenly were looking at television and newspaper images of a mangled Cessna dangling from a Tampa, Florida, high-rise. It looked like our worst fear had come true — another deliberate airplane crash into a downtown skyscraper, except this time the weapon was a general aviation airplane.
Before the broken windows in the office building could be boarded up, the pundits who regularly make the rounds of the cable news channels were accelerating to full-throttle "expert analysis." This was to be expected. The nation had been on pins and needles for nearly four months waiting for the next terrorist event, and if this wasn't exactly it, at least it was in the same headline-making ballpark.
Critics of GA had it almost too easy playing loose with the facts and portraying GA as being soft on security, not supervising its students, and allowing a 15-year-old kid to fly when he wasn't even allowed to drive a car yet, for gosh sakes. One of the early, shoot-from-the-hip fixes suggested by one pundit called for psychological evaluations of prospective student pilots.
The media, led by the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, quickly moved beyond the stark image of the crash — the airplane impaled in the twenty-eighth-floor office of a law firm — to try and discern why a bright teenager bitten by the flying bug would undertake such an act.
The facts that emerged clearly pointed to a young man acting on his own when he started the airplane without authorization, took off without a clearance, and flew a circuitous course north to downtown Tampa. Even though it was reported that a note expressing sympathy for Osama bin Laden was found on the pilot, there was no corroborating evidence to support the notion that his mission was motivated by political beliefs.
So this was not the terrorism-by-light-airplane event we'd all feared might occur, but an apparent suicide by light airplane. Hardly a comfort to the pilot's family and friends or the unfortunate flight school involved, but in the context of recent history, a great relief to the general aviation community.
Like most pilots, I was questioned after the crash by friends and acquaintances concerned about what they perceived as a continuing risk from the lack of restrictions on GA and flight training. I welcomed the questions because face-to-face conversation is the best way to correct misperceptions.
I had help. The area's daily newspaper interviewed local flight schools, and the resulting page-one story was accurate and fair. The newspaper story made two important points. First, the Tampa crash was a unique event and no amount of scrutiny, regulation, or oversight can stop a person bent on committing suicide. Dale Rabassi, owner of Beaver Aviation, told the reporter that during more than 40 years of teaching people to fly, he's never had reason to suspect a student of planning anything even remotely like what occurred in Tampa. Other flight school owners articulated what every rational person already understands, that there is "no 100 percent in life. If someone really blows a fuse, what can you do?"
The second point made by the story was encapsulated by the headline on the jump portion of the article, which read, "Flight Schools: Local Airport Security Strong." A network affiliate television station interviewed another local flight school and aired an equally fair story.
Last week our airport users group met, and a good part of the meeting was devoted to a "howgozit" discussion of local GA activity in light of what has occurred since last September. The reports were encouraging, to put it mildly. Flight school activity has rebounded to what it was at this time last year. The maintenance shop is busy. All of the hangars on the airport are full and every tiedown spot is taken. Fuel sales are strong.
Not every airport is as fortunate as ours in having weathered the post-September 11 storm so well. But considering the potential that existed for longer-lasting and more Draconian restrictions nationwide, general aviation is in remarkably good shape. With some important exceptions, all restrictions have been lifted and we are as free to fly as we were a year ago.
That would not be the case if the public had a hostile opinion of general aviation. Public opinion drives legislation and regulation, and we've fared well on both fronts. We have our association to thank for that. AOPA, along with other aviation organizations, has aggressively responded to events. For every pundit with a bone to pick, we can count on Phil Boyer and staff to counter with rational, informed insight.
The results reach all the way down to what the locals perceive, which in turn affects our airport. And I'm happy to report that we're up and flying high again.
