My Two Cents Worth
By Randy Mains
Training the Sultan's Task Force with members of the British Special Air Services (SAS): Omar, the junior officer I was training the day of the accident is second from the left.
The following is the beginning of my latest book, The Reluctant Activist
where near a cockpit this morning. My mind wasn’t focused on flight training, but I decided to fly anyway. It was a stupid mistake. The reality of knowing how badly I’d screwed up sickened me. As well as losing my wife to another man recently, it seemed likely I could now lose my job. This was not turning out to be one of my better mornings. Omar, the junior Omani officer I’d been
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training, had already seen the damage and was lying on the bench seat inside the cabin of the Bell 205 with his eyes closed, resting, waiting for the accident investiga- tion team to arrive. Omar loved to sleep. I once asked him,
“Omar why do you sleep so much?” and he replied, “Because it’s so much better than real life.” What a character. I was thinking that perhaps he had something
8 October 2013
stood next to the helicopter’s tail- plane, looking up in disbelief at the massive damage I’d done. The ac- cident was entirely my fault. I knew I shouldn’t have been any-
there. I wish I were outside the reality of ‘real life’ right now. I checked my watch: 0932. We were
waiting for the accident investigation team to fly out from Seeb Airport to in- terview us. Ops said on the radio they’d be here in about 45 minutes. That was 20 minutes ago. I shielded my eyes against the morning
desert sun, looking up again at the tail rotor still unable to believe the damage I’d caused. The 90-degree gearbox and the tail rotor were lying in a tangled mess, drooped on the opposite side of the pylon from where they should be. The blades didn’t really look that badly damaged, con- sidering they’d slammed into the dirt. If this had happened on a harder surface, like over at the airport, I would have gotten away with it because the stinger, the piece of tubular metal that sticks out from the end of the tail boom like a bee stinger, would have prevented the tail rotor from striking the ground. But we were flying over parched desert earth, so the stinger
dug in allowing the tail rotor blades to strike the ground, causing one hellacious vibration through the airframe and my flight controls. While we were skidding to a halt, de-
celerating through 30 knots, the vibration suddenly ceased. That had to be the point when the 90-degree gearbox, with its now out-of-balance tail rotor, sheared the four bolts holding it onto the top of the tail rotor pylon. I looked away from the damage I’d caused; shaking my head, knowing our fate today could have been a whole lot worse. I knew I shouldn’t have been flying to-
day because my mind simply wasn’t on the job. My thoughts were miles away from the task at hand. I’d been thinking about my disintegrating marriage. It was over; I knew that but didn’t want to admit it. I was an emotional wreck, not mentally fit. I had no business being in the cockpit this morning but I flew anyway, and ended up paying the price. Just four months before getting on an
airplane to begin this job nearly four years ago, my wife and I had a whirlwind sum- mer romance. I’d invited her to join me on my annual two-week vacation to sail with me on my beloved 35’ sloop Moali, my home for the five years I worked in
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