I started to fly in 1978. I was living in Mexico and based at Monterrey’s Aeropuerto International del Norte, which is the only general aviation airport in the country. I moved to Monterrey early that year from Mexico City, where I got my private pilot certificate. One year later, with about 300 hours in my logbook and enrolled in the school for a commercial certificate, I was working for a company with facilities in almost every big city of the Mexican east coast. I was actively flying two of the three airplanes leased full time by the company—a Cessna 206 and a Piper Arrow II. I use the word active, but very busy would fit better for the three overworked company pilots in times when the major airlines (Mexicana and Aeromexico) were suffering constant labor strikes, and cancelled flights, and being on schedule was almost an impossible task.
I received a call from the manager’s secretary, who served as a dispatcher for our little flight department. “You need to fly to Houston. Our CEO needs to catch a plane there for a flight to France. He is waiting for you at Monterrey International Airport.” This airport is located about eight miles east of the Del Norte airport. I filed an international flight plan and went to pick up the Arrow. The maintenance shop at Del Norte airport had just performed a 50-hour check on the airplane.
I topped the tanks and performed the usual preflight check; called the tower and requested a local VFR flight for the short hop to the other airport to pick up the big boss. I saw the mechanic walking towards the airplane, waving his hands. “We have to look inside, we need to check the oil filter and see if the wire lock is in place. It will only take five minutes.”
I walked into the office for a phone call and through the windows, I watched the crew removing the cowling. In this particular airplane, the top part of the cowling has four alignment pins, two at the front and two on top at the rear end. There are four latches; you must move a lever down to close them, and then a kind of butterfly lock secures each one
in place.
The mechanic verified that the wire lock was indeed in place and said, “I hope you don’t mind flying me to the other airport....I need to check an airplane there.” I said yes, of course; let’s go.
I pushed the throttle forward, took off, and started the initial climb and right turn. When I was level at 3,500 feet, I pulled the power back and switched frequencies—the destination airport was in sight.
Everything looked normal, but as the airplane started to gain speed after we were established in straight-and-level flight, strong and wild vibrations began. I grabbed the mixture lever, thinking that I would shut off the engine; I was almost sure that a chunk of propeller was gone. Then there was a big bang—and we returned to a peaceful and normal flight.
Thankfully the cowling had broken and flown off before I stopped the engine. otherwise it would have been a second emergency in an eight-mile flight. As we landed and checked the airplane, we found no latches attached on the left side; on the right side, the latches were in place. I looked at the mechanic—my passenger—and his face was a pale gray color, and he could not speak. The cowling, as it flew away, had put a hole in the top side of the windshield; that impact deflected that big piece of reinforced fiberglass away from the stabilator.
I learned a lot that day. Is this incident (very nearly an accident) somebody else’s fault? Of course not. Was it a faulty design of the Piper Arrow’s cowling? Definitely not. The fault was mine. I did not conduct a second preflight check. I took it for granted because everything had been fine just before that brief stop at the mechanic’s shop.
This was a hard way for me to learn the importance of the preflight inspection— a lesson that showed clearly how stepping away from the established standard procedures could lead to disaster.
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