The Importance of the Preflight Inspection
When flying for a charter flight operation out of Westchester County Airport (HPN), just after college, I was flying a Beechcraft Baron (B-55). I was assigned a trip to take three men up to Massachusetts and show them some real estate for development.
The passengers showed me a road map of the area they wanted to observe. So I got out my Jeppesen chart and plotted an area (quadrangle) that would allow the passengers to view the area. The topography was rolling hills and knowing the area, I determined it would be a safe operation. The weather was severe clear and a great day to go flying.
I was very familiar with the aircraft, as I had flown it for several years, and it had just come out of a one hundred hour inspection. So I looked for the usual things like circuit breakers—all were in, fuel selectors--ok, gear handle was down, and everything looked good. On the pre-flight inspection I paid special attention to flight controls, gas caps, pitot covers and gave it a thorough going over.
We took off and everything was GOOD. We got up into the valleys that they wanted to see which required me to perform some forward slipping maneuvers, (drop one wing and add plenty of opposite rudder) so the passengers could see the area over the wings. As I was doing this I noticed a slight rubbing in the aileron controls. Then ailerons did not feel Free and Full, as they were during my Pre-Takeoff checklist! As we headed over to the airport I became slightly concerned. Well heck, on landing the right aileron separated from its faired position; but was held on by the control cable. As the passengers got off the aircraft one of the guys said to me “better get that fixed”. I was surprised when they came back later for the return trip!
After landing, I called my boss and told him what happened and then had a local mechanic make the repair. During the one hundred hour inspection, while putting the right aileron back on, the local mechanic had missed the bracket with all four screws. But there was no bulging on the wing so could I have seen that? We flew back safely, and when I gave my boss the bill for repairs, he went nuts! He thought I had been kidding! He ran down to the hangar raising cane and had the mechanic fired. I really felt bad; but it was quite dangerous and we did give that repair service a lot of work.
After that occurrence and even though I had done a proper preflight, and the mechanic got fired, those of us in the Baron, were in the Danger Zone! So, we at the charter company changed our procedures and decided to always fly an aircraft after any inspection, prior to boarding any passengers. My Will-ism is: always tug on a flight control, just enough to make sure its bolted in.
Fly Safe. File a Flight Plan Check the Weather. Tug on those Flight Controls!
Until next time,
Captain Will Rondeau