Lessons from ‘Spad’

The loss of aviation safety leader, pilot, and friend Richard McSpadden from the AOPA’s Air Safety Institute causes reflection.

Julie Boatman

Friday, October 06, 2023 at 04:26 PM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Richard McSpadden, a renowned aviation safety advocate and AOPA executive, tragically died in a plane crash on October 1st at Lake Placid Airport, along with pilot Russ Francis.
McSpadden, a former U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds commander, dedicated his career to improving general aviation safety as the executive director of the Air Safety Institute, and was known for his calm and deliberate approach.
The accident involved an "undefined emergency" shortly after takeoff, leading to a forced landing into trees; while both occupants survived the impact, they died soon afterward.
His death serves as a poignant reminder for pilots to continually assess objective hazards, thoroughly brief for potential emergencies (like loss of power on takeoff), and take every necessary safety step before departure.

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We lost one of the truly good humans among us in the aviation family last weekend. And it happened in an accident that strikes me—ahead of any official report from the National Transportation Safety Board or otherwise—as a confluence of objective hazards and bad luck.

In an accident on October 1 at the Lake Placid Airport (KLKP) in New York, Richard McSpadden was in the right seat of a Cessna 177RG Cardinal, with pilot and former New England Patriots tight end Russ Francis in the left seat. The Cardinal was flying as a single ship and had just lifted off when a so-far undefined emergency caused them to initiate a return to the ground. Though the pair survived the subsequent forced landing into the trees—based on photos released of the scene—they both died soon afterward.