Apparently, after over four decades of borrowing someone else’s airplane (with passengers included, of course) and limited mechanical problems, my nemesis has become airplane ownership. A major repair that was completed more than four years ago on my Piper Arrow has once again come back to haunt me. Unfortunately, the latest iteration of cringeworthy airplane ownership is the result of a heartbreaking, unimaginable accident.
Those of us seasoned in the world of aviation and airplanes know that stuff breaks. A cylinder loses compression. A fan blade cracks. A magneto fails. A hydraulic pump leaks. But do any of us for even a moment conceive that a wing might fail? Tragically, this is precisely what occurred on April 4, 2018, at Daytona Beach International Airport in Florida when the left wing separated from a 2007 Piper Arrow operated by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University shortly after takeoff from a touch-and-go landing.
