Sad

[Ernie Martin]

My condolescences and heart-felt sadness for Paul's loss.

Let us take this opportunity to think about what happened and ask what we might learn from it. Here's a highly experienced pilot, a mechanical engineer who knew every aspect of his airplane, flying in daylight with good weather, and with a light load -- just himself.

Ask yourself: what could possibly go wrong? Only three things, in my opinion. Pilot incapacitation (stroke, heart attack), fuel contamination, or failure of a control surface. I am ruling out seat-stop failure because of witness reports and fuel exhaustion because what are the chances that BOTH tanks run dry simultaneously?

When I get in my Skymaster I fear two things: an engine failure on takeoff with a fully loaded airplane in Miami's hot weather and an on-board fire (I fly mostly over water).

That's it. Well, that WAS it. Now I'm rethinking. Worried. And anxious to learn what happened.

Let's start a dialog. What do YOU think? What else should we be worried about?

Ernie Martin