GUFY grave

End of GUFY tripping. Not my best landing. Sorry for the delay in reporting. Just got released from Thunder Bay Hospital. While GUFY is essentially totaled, the only major injury to me was a broken left leg, the tibia above the ankle. Fortunately there is a procedure where they insert a titanium 'rod' down the soft center of the bone and screw it in place. The leg is instantly weight bearing. A couple of days later I was ready to leave the hospital without any cast but some crutches. Due to an administrative confusion I finally got to leave Friday morning.

The staples come out in a couple of weeks and they say in a month I will be back to 'normal'. Could have been worse.

I will give some details of the accident (it was not on purpose). But first I will address the elephant in the room. No I am not heartbroken because I have lost my beloved plane.

When I first got the plane, I set the goal of visiting all the provinces in Canada. I did that in 2013. Everything since then has been a bonus. I am happy and grateful for them all but have always been aware that some day I would have to stop. The most likely reason was "losing my medical" due to advancing age. That is why I have been so vigorous in pursuing these voyages regularly. Literally, it was fun while it lasted.

I have been aware of the risks inherent by my flying trips, with the understanding that the aircraft could be destroyed under certain circumstances. That was acceptable to me for the increased benefits from these voyages. On the other hand, I was not prepared to accept any significant increase in risk to anyone's life, including mine. I always said I would trash the plane to save a life. I did what I could to keep the plane as reliable and decided the worse acceptable case was to crash somewhere where it would take a couple days for rescue. I instrumented my plane and survival equipment accordingly. A serious but reparable injury was acceptable. In effect, I have already gone through potential anguish of losing the plane and considered the physical and mental pain acceptable.

As it turned out, the crash was quite close the outside limit of my acceptability, Rescue arrived in less than an hour. I was ready.

I would have rather sold the plane due to advancing decrepitude then adding to the landscape of northern Ontario, but evidently a very small risk is still not zero. Bit like winning the negative lottery.

I will write another note on what led up to the accident. For now I will just state that while approaching Red Lake airport around 2:30 pm local time the engine suddenly stopped with the prop pitch in feathered mode. The terrain was wooded with numerous small lakes and some logging roads.

A number of people, especially non pilots, heard the story of my accident and remarked that I was lucky to have survived. I disagree with that sentiment. It implies that flying is an inherently risky activity where mishaps tend to lead to fatalities. Not true. It is true that serious mishaps, although relatively rare, when they do happen tend to result in serious vehicle damage. But pilots are trained to handle these emergency conditions and respond accordingly to maximize the likelihood of survival. It is not a matter of luck, or great skill, but training. Or at least that is the way is is supposed to work, and did in this time too.

As a former glider pilot/fanatic, it took me a long time to trust the engine enough not to fear that it could fail at any time, so always kept within range of a good landing spot. Ironically an engine stoppage was involved in the destruction of my plane.Read more