Memorial to the Crew of Coast Guard 6535

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the loss of a Coast Guard HH-65 and her four crewmen on 28 February 2012, let us remember them.  Let us each take this opportunity to rededicate ourselves to the flight discipline and the discipline in judgement that our profession demands of us each day we fly.  It is only when we do that their sacrifice is not in vain.

I wrote the piece below on the way home from the crew's memorial service last year.  I share it herewith in hope that it will have meaning for all who read it.

_______________________

08 March 2012

OVER THE NORTHEAST GULF OF MEXICO - As I sit in my seat at 17,000 feet, cruising along serenely in the sunlight, I reflect on events of earlier in the day wistfully and with gratitude for the privilege of having been there.  I am returning, along with my shipmates from CG Air Station Miami, from the memorial service for the crew of CG 6535 - the helicopter that was lost this past week in Mobile Bay. It was a magnificent service.  Upwards of 3,000 Coast Guard members and their families were there, along with members of many of our partner agencies.  They sky was overcast and gray, with a hint of chill and a threat of rain the air - most fitting for such a somber occasion.  The Commandant of the Coast Guard was there, along with an Assistant Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, several other Admirals, air station commanding officers, and others.

This was a most moving experience for many reasons.  For many of these same reasons, this event has shaken Coast Guard Aviation to its very core.  This accident happened in a relatively controlled training environment.  The instructor was one of the Coast Guard's most experienced and highly regarded instructors and evaluators.  It was the trainee's final flight before certification - a trainee who had been a star officer and a star student. It happened in a training program that, despite the dangers and complexities of the missions for which they train, had not had a fatal mishap since 1981 - before many current CG pilots were even born - and even that accident had been caused by a mechanical failure.  Thus the usual suspects for causal factors regarding skill, or knowledge, or performance, or even of discipline seem not to be present.  Such would make much easier the task of contemplating this horrific event.

No... None of these easy answers seems readily available.  We are left, then, to contemplate the significance of this event for those of us left behind.  It is a demonstration that it can happen to any of us.  Each of us thinks we are at minimum good, competent, skilled aviators who exercise sound judgment in decision-making when we fly.  So did they.  We each strive to learn something from every time we take one of these amazing contraptions into the air.  So did they.  Those of us who instruct and/or evaluate endeavor to look at these factors when we fly with our aviators and attempt to impart some of that knowledge to them.  So did LCDR Taylor.

But... despite all of the good and wonderful things we heard today about these men, their supreme competence, knowledge, and skill, their mission last Tuesday night somehow ended in tragedy - and we're still here.  As for the specific reasons, a team of experts is already hard at work to figure that out.  Their painstaking work will take months.  We must give them the room to do that job.  They will figure it out, and then we will know.

But what are we to do in the meantime?  How do we go out tomorrow to do that same job - knowing that we are not any better, more competent or skilled, than they?  More importantly, how do we do so and have an expectation of a different outcome?

I submit that we begin by recognizing that we are not any better.  We are not immune.  We are as vulnerable and flawed as any who have gone before - including the crew of 6535.  We then resolve to renew our commitment to personal self-accountability.  Accountability in decision-making, accountability in performance, accountability in how we deal with those around us - our crewmates, our shipmates, and our families.  We acknowledge that every time we strap ourselves into one of those machines, we're all-in.  We're playing for all the marbles.

The men of 6535 did not know this was their last flight - or their last day on Earth, for that matter.  Yet, from what we learned about them today, it seems that they conducted their lives as if they did.  They quietly, without a lot of fuss, went about living lives of excellence and commitment on a daily basis.  Their example can be a lesson for the rest of us if we are open to learning and personal growth.  Let it be so for those of us in Auxiliary Aviation.  Let it be so for those of us in the entire Coast Guard family.  Let this be our way of honoring the memory of our fallen shipmates.

I know that it shall be so for me.

God be with you, my shipmates - until we meet again.