Most of you won’t remember back in February of 2019 when a Boeing 767 flying under the banner of Prime Air was on a flight from Miami to Houston and crashed into Trinity Bay while on final approach. I read the NTSB report and they concluded the accident was caused by the second officer having spatial disorientation and the Captain wasn’t paying attention to the inputs the F/O was making. A third pilot was onboard, which was considered as a passenger, but all three were killed as the plane suddenly nose dived into the water.
From out of the blue, I received a phone call on Saturday from a retired pilot I haven’t heard from in years. He hasn’t even showed up at any of out get-togethers. Every five years or so, we have a retirement weekend for us old pilots that like to get together and play golf, have dinner, etc. with our wives invited also. Most seem to have a good time. Well, this pilot asked me if I had read about this accident in 2019 in Houston. I told him sure I did. I still keep an eye on the aviation business.
That’s when he told me that the third man was his youngest brother and had been recently hired by United as a F/O and was due to report for training the following week. He was on his last flight with Prime Air (actually it was Atlas Air that owned the plane) and he lived in Houston, so he would have finished his employment with Atlas Air. I just thought how ironic it was that here’s a guy that was only maybe 15 minutes away from ending one job to begin another. I have thought about this since that phone call on Saturday and keep thinking how a person’s life can change in almost a flash.
His brother also told me that since he was going to be working for United, his home airport was going to be Dallas, so him and his wife were planning on moving closer to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. I felt what a shame this was.
From out of the blue, I received a phone call on Saturday from a retired pilot I haven’t heard from in years. He hasn’t even showed up at any of out get-togethers. Every five years or so, we have a retirement weekend for us old pilots that like to get together and play golf, have dinner, etc. with our wives invited also. Most seem to have a good time. Well, this pilot asked me if I had read about this accident in 2019 in Houston. I told him sure I did. I still keep an eye on the aviation business.
That’s when he told me that the third man was his youngest brother and had been recently hired by United as a F/O and was due to report for training the following week. He was on his last flight with Prime Air (actually it was Atlas Air that owned the plane) and he lived in Houston, so he would have finished his employment with Atlas Air. I just thought how ironic it was that here’s a guy that was only maybe 15 minutes away from ending one job to begin another. I have thought about this since that phone call on Saturday and keep thinking how a person’s life can change in almost a flash.
His brother also told me that since he was going to be working for United, his home airport was going to be Dallas, so him and his wife were planning on moving closer to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. I felt what a shame this was.
