Air Warrior Courage Foundation
Special Operations Warrior Foundation

Update 12 Aug: Special Operations Warrior Foundation has announced they will offer full college scholarships to all children of those killed in the crash. Please consider a donation to either of these organizations.
 

Long before Arnold Palmer piloted his first aircraft, in 1956, he was aware of the Newtonian law, “What goes up must come down.” On Jan. 31, the rule will have slightly sadder, more literal implications. When Palmer, 81, pilots his Cessna Citation 10 jet from Palm Springs to Orlando that morning, it will be his last flight as pilot. His license expires that day, and Palmer has elected not to have it renewed.

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My sister’s husband, a fellow F-16 pilot, was in the tower as the ATC liaison that night – SOF or “supervisor of flight” in military parlance.  I remember her calling me, telling me something was wrong.  Her husband had sent her a terse text message, saying he would be home late. Subsequent texts didn’t provide any details to the evolving situation, but from the tone she knew it was bad.

For the next several days, search and rescue teams scoured the Atlantic off the coast, but came up empty.  This is part of what my sister wrote publicly a few days later:

Thursday night while talking to my dad on the phone, I got a text from my husband, Eric, saying he would be late coming home from work. I would not normally think much of this except that on Thursday night he was sitting in the tower on base sitting SOF (Supervisor of Flying) and usually that job didn’t require you to stay late. He was supposed to be home around 10 and I got the text about 930. So I waited an hour or so and replied asking if he had an update on the time he’d be home. He said he’d be late and that he’d update me when he could. I knew there wasn’t much weather around and something still wasn’t sitting well with me. I texted him back and said “Is everyone or everything okay?” All I got back was “I can’t answer that right now”. My heart began to race and by the time he got home at 230 am (I waited up b/c what else was I going to do) it had been on the news that 2 F-16s (both pilots from the squadron my husband is in here in SC) had collided during a training mission not far off the coast of South Carolina. One pilot had landed his jet back in Charleston and the other, Captain Giglio was missing. I have never felt emotions that I felt that night, but I found myself saying to other pilots wives the next day, we have to believe in miracles, just look at what God did for my dad.  This all began Thursday night around 830 and by Saturday night, they called off the rescue and said the chances of Capt Giglio having been able to eject from the jet was slim to none.  Fox News carried the story.

Due to everything going on with my dad’s lung transplant in the past month or so, I had not gotten a chance to meet Capt Giglio’s wife as they had only been here for a few months. Captain Giglio left behind a 14 month old daughter Grace and his high school sweetheart (graduated in 1995) turned wife in 2000 expecting their second child in February. The wives in our squadron have done our best to support his wife, Leigh and one of those ways is having a 77th Fighter Squadron wife at her house with her and her family. My shift was this morning.  I had never met Leigh formally. She joined MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) 2 weeks ago and I was involved with it last year. At the beginning of the year, something had to give for my family and that was what I had to give up, but my fellows MOPS gals promised to pray for my dad and keep him on their prayer list even though I wasn’t there.

This morning as I drove to the house leaving my husband at home, I had many different emotions. I had just been able to kiss my husband goodbye and what in the world could I say to this wife who had just lost her husband? I was scared that I would say the wrong thing and she would just break down. I’m a social person, but it was an extremely uncomfortable position for me to be in. I walked to the door and knocked quietly not knowing if Grace was sleeping. Leigh opened the door, I introduced myself saying, “Hi, I’m Christy Music, we are in the 77th, my husband is Eric” (or something like that, it was somewhat of a blur). But before I had stepped foot past the front door and after saying who I was, the first thing out of her mouth was not “good morning” or “hi, nice to meet you”, it was immediately “Oh, Christy, how is your dad?” WHAT?

Even as I write that and remember the words coming out of her mouth I get chills and it brings tears to my eyes. Someone who 3 days earlier had lost her husband and had only been told 36 hours prior that they were ending the search and rescue that it would now be in recovery mode was asking me how my dad was? Someone who had yet to meet me. Someone who has a 14 month old and a baby boy growing in her belly that won’t even get to know his father was asking me how my dad was. I was blown away and stood there for a few seconds not able to say a word but finally was able to get out the words “He’s doing great, thank you for asking”. We talked for a few more minutes about my dad with Leigh letting me know she and Nick had been praying for and she will continue to pray for my dad before moving into the kitchen where we began the rest of the day. Let’s not talk about how I felt when I cooked eggs for her and asked her if she wanted me to put milk in them so they would be fluffy. She came over and put her arm around me and said, oh thank you, Nick always used to ask if I wanted my eggs fluffy. You can DEFINITELY see a woman very sure of her faith and she knows where her husband went. It was amazing to spend the morning with her even though she was in and out trying to get dressed to go shopping for clothes for the memorial service and on the phone with various offices. I couldn’t let go of her first statement to me and couldn’t wait to be able to call my dad and share the news with him.

All this after calling him over the weekend after the F-16 accident to share with him that another one of our friends in the F-16 community that were stationed with us in UT, they are now in Italy, lost his wife just hours after she gave birth to their second baby boy. I’m trying to make a deal with God where he doesn’t give me any more bad news b/c while everything with my dad has been a complete blessing and miracle, I’m kinda spent. Within 2 weeks I think I’ve experienced just about every emotion humanly possible, but I know that someone always has it worse than me.

I am so blessed to have a husband that played an important role in the way things played out after the collision occurred and still walked in the door that night. I am blessed with so many things but I am blessed to know that I know a God who watches out for each and every one of us no matter where we are. He puts certain people in our lives and has them say certain things to know he’s there with us at all times. That’s what I feel he was doing with Leigh. We still have a long week ahead knowing there is a service for a young mother in Italy on Wednesday and the memorial service here Thursday for Captain Giglio but God is in control of all of it just as he was with my dad’s transplant.  Please just pray for these families as you continue to pray for my dad. They both have long roads ahead of them.

Capt Giglio and his aircraft were never found.  He was presumed to have perished in the initial impact.  Buried in Arlington National Cemetery, the lost aviator leaves behind a wife and two young children.  Not just another nameless family that made the ultimate sacrifice, this one is personal and close to home.

If you would like to help the families of fallen heroes, please consider the Air Warrior Courage Foundation.

♣

Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces of the sky;
Be with them traversing the air
In darkening storms or sunshine fair

Thou who dost keep with tender might
The balanced birds in all their flight
Thou of the tempered winds be near
That, having thee, they know no fear

For a few days after 9/11/2001, the skies were eerily silent.  The entire United States airspace was closed to all non-military traffic.  All aircraft are stopped on the ground.  No aircraft were allowed to enter United States airspace, and all airborne aircraft that morning were to land as soon as practical – aviation speak for “immediately”.

Since we started flying rickety machines in 1903, a nationwide ATC ZERO condition had never happened, and no one had planned for such an event.  There was no manual, no procedure for landing every single airborne plane in every sector.  But on 9/11/2001, thanks to brave, smart ATC controllers more than 4,200 aircraft at the time ATC ZERO was declared safely landed.  It was individual controllers, individual tower supervisors who made decisions that had to be made and brought so many aircraft safely back to earth.

Thank you to the controllers in the towers, the centers, the TRACONs, and all the other facilities that keep our skies safe.  You guys are forgotten heroes of September 11.

Update: @Avtips provided links to several NTSB reports for 9/11, including ATC transcripts.

The FAA offered an alternative – paint the tower orange and white.

The FAA would prefer a flashing white strobe during the day and red beacon at night, but a possible alternative would be to paint the tower bright orange and white in 8-foot stripes from top to bottom, Papenfuss said. He asked the FAA to wait on its recommendation until town planners state their preference. His preference was clear: “You don’t want that god-awful orange and white paint you see for miles.”

Actually, dumbass, yes you do.  An airplane traveling at 200mph covers 2 miles in about 30 seconds.  That isn’t much time to see the obstruction while busy preparing to land, and avoid it.  Apparently some residents objected to the tower being lit, and after just a day or so complained, referring to it as a “tower of terror” – because of the light.

The article then takes a very SimCity like turn, with these gems:

“I’m totally confused. … I’m moving.”

“It really smells as far as I’m concerned”

the light is “pretty bad. You could get sunburn from it.”

“My house is lit up like a disco. I am inflicted with ocular migraines. … You need to drop their cell tower to where there’s no light, or tear it down.”

This is the type of nonsense you get from an uninformed citizenry crying NIMBY!

Please stay the hell away from Columbus. Especially when we’re trying to train and prepare for a real disaster. You knew we were running an all-day exercise that hard-working folks have been planning for over a year. You knew your visit would mean sucking away resources from our exercise and leaving us short-handed on first responders. You gave us barely two days notice (based on the publication of the initial TFR), and wanted us to cancel our plans – for you.

I don’t think you give a sh*t. We’re just flyover country. We’re mostly just typical white people who cling to our God and our guns, and what we’re doing doesn’t really matter. You’re the king, and if you want to come to give a 10 minute speech on the one day we need you to not be here screwing things up, we’ll just have to suffer. You have no respect for the American people, let alone the good citizens of Columbus.

How many of our first responders were not able to participate because you had to come to town? They had to line your parade route to make sure they were available if anything happened to YOU. It is always about YOU. How many of our firefighters and police missed out on valuable, irreplaceable training? How much less prepared are we now, and how much benefit in emergency services have the tax payers of central Ohio lost because of you?

Let me be clear Mr. President. This wasn’t some little mom-and-pop operation in a rural firehouse in the sticks. We’re a major city, and this involved the entire Columbus metro area, including a major airport, 9 major local hospitals, and more fire-rescue departments than I can count. Two hospitals bailed at the last minute – one because you were going to be in their way. Many agencies were only able to send EMTs. There were only a couple of fire trucks and almost no police. Does that make sense in a major disaster? Of course not. Because I suspect they were all pulled off the exercise to come babysit you for your 58 minutes on the ground here in town.

You couldn’t pick another day on YOUR busy schedule. You just had to fly in, spend 10 whole minutes talking about jobs – while the workers on the site you chose for your theatre had to go home without pay. Your 10 minutes pretty much ruined months and months of careful planning and coordination from multiple agencies, and a whole day for all of the unpaid volunteers. Go back to Washington and stay the hell out of my city.

Sincerely,
Me

Update: Found a CBS article saying the 10 minute speech cost the tax payers somewhere between $500,000 and $1,000,000. Salt in the wound.

The simple fact is this: Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. Once in a while, lone maniacs decide to kill as many people as they can. All the name checks and technology in the world couldn’t have kept Stack from flying his plane into the IRS building. But perhaps this tragedy will cause the TSA to reconsider its ill-conceived plan to roll back general aviation security. (Boston Herald)

What we’re saying is that nothing would have stopped this guy, but we should use this as an excuse to burden GA with draconian security theatre measures anyway?

The columnist is right.  Very little, if anything could have stopped this maniac.  However, @NYCAviation made a very insightful statement

Hey Joe Stack! Having money problems? $10k money hole? MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE SOLD YOUR 6-FIGURE AIRPLANE!

Stack smashed the Piper he owned into a building in downtown Austin, killing himself and one other who was in the building at the time.  The 90 second ATC tape (Stack is identified as “Dakota” or “8-9-Delta”) is completely routine chatter.  Chilling in retrospect, but no clues that I or the controller on duty could discern as to what Stack was about to do.

In my best impression of how I imagine John Stossel might sum it up: Before we give the TSA more of our tax dollars, more authority over GA, allow them to impose more nonsense on the aviation community and the public at large, they should explain.  Because so-called TSA security “experts” are citing this situation for an expansion of TSA powers, they have the burden to make the case in great detail how having all of these added tools and resources at our expense, financial and otherwise, would have stopped this attack.  The reality is that it would not have.

All of that said, I fly Southwest almost exclusively.  I will continue to fly Southwest.  They have the best fares for my money, don’t charge me to bring my clothes with me, and don’t hassle me with exorbitant fees if I need to cancel or change a flight.  Southwest consistently has one of the best on-time records of all the airlines, and one of the best customer satisfaction ratings.  Southwest is consistently recognized for being an outstanding business.  But none of those things are why Southwest is my airline of choice.

I choose Southwest because of their people.  They are one of those rare companies that doesn’t just pretend to treat customers well in tv ads and CEO speeches.  One small example: Recently, I had a 70-80 minute connection layover at MDW on my way home.  As I stepped off the flight inbound to MDW, I noticed that there was an earlier flight leaving for Columbus in about 15 minutes.  I stopped and asked the gate agent if it would be possible to go home early, but that it was no big deal I was already booked on a later flight.  A quick “let me check on that for you” and two minutes later I was heading home.  No change fees, no rebooking charges, no having to buy a new ticket, no sighs of frustration from an overworked airline employee.  Just, “here you go, have a great flight!”  I got home early, and was able to pick up my dog from the kennel that day instead of waiting until the next day. She got home early and I saved a day’s worth of boarding fees.

Southwest didn’t get to be where they are today by treating “normal” people badly.  That is part of what has gotten other airlines into their current mess, and why Southwest is so popular – actually making money while other carriers hemorrhage capital.  There are no “frills” on a Southwest flight, but I’ve never once had a ticket agent, gate agent, F/A or flight deck crew get snippy with me.  They go beyond that, they’re pleasant people to be around.  After playing security theatre games with the TSA, I would rather be stuck on a plane with people who love their jobs, and love their customers.

Thank you, folks of Southwest, for all that you do for us.

FoxNews Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., said every time an evacuation [of the capitol] is ordered, it has usually been caused by a private pilot in a small plane using an old map. Ross suggested that the size of the plane is irrelevant because one dirty bomb could do a lot of damage. But, he said, sending everyone a map could be done for the money spent on one evacuation.

“I’m sure its running a million dollars every time there’s an evacuation, wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to send every private pilot in America one of the updated maps?” he asked.

Maybe the congressman can get a clue before he opens his mouth. Sectionals are about $7 each, and updated every few months, and pilots are required by regulations to have current information. Any pilot with half a clue knows where the ADIZ is located, congressman. The problem isn’t a lack of maps, it is pilots who aren’t doing what they are supposed to, or just get lost. And they get busted for it. There is no reason for any pilot not to have current information. Sending the ones who are going to violate the ADIZ a map is going to waste OUR $55, because they’re not going to use it anyways. (Thats how much each sectional would cost to send to every registered pilot of congress decided it had to be done.)

If it costs a million dollars to evacuate the capitol building, maybe we can not evacuate and see how happy they are.