57E squawks Hijack, part 3
Gregory R. TRAVIS
1. Were there things I could have done differently? Certainly.
First of all I probably should never have divulged that I was
a pilot. But at the time I did, I did not believe I was going
to be hijacked.
It was also very difficult to determine WHAT to do. Things seemed
to lurch from one situation to another - I'll wax poetic and say
I was just a passenger on the train of destiny. *urp*
People kept coming up to me and telling me how well I handled the
situation. Well, I don't see it that way at all. There just were
not THAT MANY CHOICES to be made. Like an engine failure at night
in IMC, you just don't have a whole lot of options. Conversely,
you don't have a lot of ways to screw up. It was pretty much
stimulus-response the whole time.
Should I have tried to jump him? Perhaps. But I did not know
anything about him. He did tell me that
he did not drink. Drugs? Crazy? Scared? Agitated? Mad as
hell? Yeah, I think it was something like that. Perhaps I could
have overpowered him. Next time I might try. However, it was not
until I was actually in the plane that I began to have really
MORTAL thoughts. Before that I was operating under the assumption that
I was going to be able to talk this guy out of what he was doing. That
I could convince him to "go away." That I could conclude the episode
at a low conflict level. Had I felt more directly threatened, had he
started hitting me, I might have tried to get him.
2. Has it been, in any way, "fun"? No, not at all. It has been personally
embarassing to me. I am sick of it. What kind of a goof-off is alone on a
Saturday night washing his plane?
3. What was his mindset? I had a very hard time sizing up my passenger
on the ground. He was obviously very nervous and very mad. Life just
wasn't going right for him and he wanted to make a statement. This
was perhaps the most difficult of all. He did not want money, or cars,
or anything. He just wanted to make a scene either by killing some
authority figure or taking hostages. Because he did not really have
a plan, I was unable to think very far ahead in the situation.
4. What about my choices of airports? I dunno. Had I known Peoria was as
close as it was would I have gone there? Probably not; remember that I
was operating under the false impression that things at Kankakee would
be smooth and co-ordinated.
Best quote, from the defense lawyer:
"If his gun had gone off in the plane, would that, you know,
have caused a crash?"
Me: "Probably, if it went off into my head." Ta-dum!
She was, of course, referring to rapid decompression. I explained
that my Cessna 172 did not have the pressurization option.
Best dilemma:
There was talk about reimbursing me for the fuel costs, etc.
They asked me how much it costs me to fly my plane. I said about $30/hour,
at 3 hours (roundtrip time to IKK) that it cost me about $90-100 for the
whole incident. Now, I couldn't care less about the money in this case
and I never asked nor expected to be reimbursed. I got to thinking -
I CAN'T take the money, can I? I have to at least SHARE the expense
with my "passenger." Gee, if I had only finished that commercial back
then...
Well, I gotta go work on my airplane...
greg, N5457E, 'packin
--
Gregory Reed Travis D P S I
Data Parallel Systems Incorporated gr...@cica.indiana.edu
Kenneth Ingham
.ucs.indiana.edu (Gregory R. TRAVIS) writes:
>2. What kind of a goof-off is alone on a Saturday night washing his plane?
Ask my housemates...
--
Kenneth Ingham WD5BBT
ing...@ariel.unm.edu (NeXTMail OK)
Hummin' lil Grumman N9646L
Tom R. Myers
I returned to Palo Alto after a Saturday practice session last summer late
enough for the tower to be closed (> 9pm). The hangar next to mine had
recently been fitted with an alarm system which had apparently not had all
of the bugs worked out of it yet. At least that's what all the cops that were
on the scene told me when I taxied up and shut down. I guess the cops weren't
allowed to leave until the scene was "clear", so the hour or so of Saturday
night aircraft wipe-down and inspection was done under police supervision.
(I was half expecting a white glove airframe inspection before I was allowed
to leave.) 8^)
TRM N1005E