Airport eating, crash report, cloning

Good news for area pilots and others who frequent MAC'S AIRPORT RESTAURANT. It has added breakfast and lunch on Saturdays. Also it's open Thursday and Friday evenings ... along with its regular daily hours.

A lot of area weekend pilots like to fly into Cape for a meal and visit ... certainly in weather like we're having. Flying has its travel benefits and also its just plain fun. Last Saturday, Army helicopters flying from Decatur and Peoria in Illinois to Fort Chaffee, Ala., dropped 40 to 50 soldiers into Mac's for lunch.

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As an instrument-rated pilot with 2,550 hours, I have flown for over 40 years.

Our company presently owns a single-engine Bonanza A36, which lets us get to the majority of the newspapers we own in about an hour and 20 minutes or less (instead of the five- to six-hour drive time) to such places as Nevada and Marshall in Missouri, Eureka Springs in Arkansas and Greencastle in Indiana.

As an ever-learning pilot, I recently read the 24-page National Transportation Safety Board's aircraft accident brief of Cessna 335, N5354N, which crashed with Gov. MEL CARNAHAN, his son and pilot, RANDY, and Puxico, Mo. native CHRIS SIFFORD on board.

All pilots should read this report, which can be found on the Internet:

http:www.ntsb.gov/PUBLICtn/2002.AABO202.htm.

Some of the report's items presented greater detail than generally reported in the news media.

1. The security officer stated that the pilot was seated in the left front seat (normal) but that "he could not tell where the two passengers were seated."

To me this is significant, because Governor Carnahan (an instrument-rated pilot) could have possibly been helpful during the flight if he had been sitting in the co-pilot's seat, especially with the reported weather at the time of take-off.

The report stated that the pilot appeared to be current in his flying time (and was flying almost daily) but had not filled out his log book for over six months.

The weather was not good ... but flyable. Reported weather was 3/4-mile visibility in light rain with broken ceiling at 800 feet at St. Louis Spirit Airport 14 minutes after the crash (23 miles north of the departure airport, St. Louis Downtown-Parks Airport across the river from downtown St. Louis).

The weather at Downtown-Parks was wind 12 knots gusting to 16, visibility two miles in light rain and mist, broken ceiling at 600 feet, broken at 1,200 feet and overcast at 3,200 feet ... light rime ice reported at 12,000 feet at the time of takeoff.

By 20 minutes after the crash, the ceiling at Downtown-Parks was 800 broken, 1,200 overcast.

The New Madrid destination airport weather was basically good for an instrument pilot.

Though the vacuum system was working, the left attitude indicator was functioning improperly. The right vacuum instrument and the electric turn and bank instrument were working properly.

The probable cause that the NTSB reported "was the pilot's failure to control the airplane while maneuvering because of spatial disorientation. Contributing to the accident were the failure of the airplane's primary attitude indicator and the adverse weather conditions, including turbulence."

The report of the unfortunate accident can be read as a learning, real-world experience for any pilot at any stage of flying, especially the references to the radio calls, controller comments (all taped), flight routes and numerous turns during the 18 minutes the airplane was in the air. Also of note are the many other options that one might consider in a cool, timely analysis after the fact such as declaring an emergency or lowering the landing gear to stabilize the airplane.

The Cessna 335's automatic pilot could well have been useless because of the turbulence created by the reported level 2 to level 3 thunderstorms occurring or the malfunctioned attitude indicator to which it is linked.

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Congratulations to REX RUST, who completed his long-distance solo cross-country flight on his way to his private pilot's certificate. He navigated over 450 nautical miles (almost 500 road miles) and landed at Lake of the Ozarks and Harrison, Ark., before returning to the Cape Girardeau airport.

He also landed at Thayer, Mo., where he wisely sat out the passing of the previously unanticipated Sunday afternoon rainstorm.

Daschle's duplicity: Senate majority leader Tom Daschle has demonstrated once again that his word is worthless. Daschle repeatedly has reneged on his public promise to Republican leaders to bring up for a vote the Brownback-Landrieu bill to ban human cloning. Late in the night on June 12, Daschle reneged again, pulling the Brownback-Landrieu bill from consideration.

Here's the record: When the House passed a bipartisan bill last fall that would ban the cloning of human embryos (by more than 100 votes), Daschle refused to bring it up for a vote in the Senate. Then, as part of a complicated deal with GOP leaders involving the energy bill, Daschle agreed to move forward the cloning legislation in February or March. Those months passed without action. The congressional record shows Daschle repeatedly has delayed moving the cloning ban bill. Finally, he scheduled the bill for debate beginning June 14 with a likely vote on Tuesday -- only to renege again Wednesday night. Daschle pulled the bill, saying the issue is dead and that it will not be brought up again. Daschle has shown by his actions that he is not to be trusted and that he cannot be relied upon to act with integrity.

It's now clear that, given Daschle's duplicity, no cloning ban is likely to pass the Senate this year. This means there are no legal barriers to the cloning and destruction of human embryos for speculative medical experimentation. What is not prohibited is permitted.

Right now, nothing stands in the way of laboratories creating cloned human embryos and scavenging them for their stem cells or implanting them in women to produce cloned babies. The president's inspiring rhetoric on cloning was welcomed. He will do well to back up his words with decisive action. -- Washington Update

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I never think of the future. It comes soon enough. When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute -- and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity. -- Albert Einstein

Gary Rust is chairman of Rust Communications.