Tahoma Guilt

As you may know, I'm an aircraft inspector. I've been working in aviation since graduating A&P school back in the summer of 1993. I've had good times, and bad, working for first a cargo carrier, then a research and development facility.

At this R&D facility, I was the lead inspector for six years. I was able to gain a lot of interesting experience there. As that job came to an end during 2008, I was hunting for a job that summer. One of the things I did was post my resume up on some aviation job sites.

One day that summer, while at work, I got a cold call from an air cargo company called Air Tahoma. They were based in Columbus Ohio, and the man on the phone was their Director of Maintenance.

He said he'd seen my resume online, and asked me if I might be interested in becoming the Chief Inspector there at Air Tahoma, Columbus.

That was quite a shock. Chief Inspector is pretty much the top dog position that an aviation inspector can shoot for. The next step up would be something corporate I think.

I told him I was interested. So we talked about it for about twenty minutes, while I sat outside behind our hangar.

What he told me of the position was interesting. What he didn't tell me, spoke volumes.

He told me a little bit about the company and it's history, the types of planes they flew, and the different places in the world they visited with the aircraft.

He told me that the reason he was looking for the Chief Inspector position, was that the current person in the position was an interim measure, and the local FAA was wanting a permanent person in as soon as possible.

Basically, when the feds tell you to get your butt in gear and hire someone, you should listen.

The person there now, I was told, was old and cranky. He didn't want to be a team player, and was always giving the maintenance side a hard time about everything.

The man on the phone told me he was looking for someone who would work with his decisions better, so things could go smoother.

He offered me a salary, right there over the phone. $50 K per year.

I told him I'd have to talk to my wife and think about it before I came for a visit.

He asked me to get back with him that same afternoon with a yes or a no, as he was in a time crunch.

I had to reflect on that phone call for a while.

This was an opportunity for me. To get experience in the top job in my current profession, inspection.

The negatives started adding up though.

Moving to Columbus would be another move to a place where my family had no support system. No relatives, no friends.

$50 K per year, really isn't that much money, especially for that job position.

The things he didn't say started to bother me. Why was he offering me a position, sight unseen, over the phone? The real reason.

What was the current Chief Inspector giving him such a hard time over, and why wasn't that guy going to take the permanent position?

Nobody else on staff had the experience or willingness to take the position?

What sort of things was I going to be expected to be going along with, in order to have things run smoothly?

All these things bothered me.

I talked to my current boss, and friend. We were all looking for jobs at that point, so it wasn't a breach of etiquette or anything.

He kind of came to the same conclusion I did.

Stay away from this one!

It turns out, we were both right. That September, a few months after I spoke with him, one of their airplanes crashed in a field short of the runway there in Columbus. All three crew were killed. The FAA and NTSB stepped in and investigated, found numerous problems, and pulled Air Tahoma's certificate. They were out of business.

I've had time now to think on that whole thing now and then. And I have to admit, I have some indirect guilt. I know it's ridiculous, you don't have to tell me.

Sometimes I play that what if game with myself though. What if I'd taken the job, I'd have been there at that time. What if I could have prevented that from happening?

Now, I'm no hero or anything, don't get me wrong. The problem that brought the plane down, was that the elevator trim cables were hooked up backwards. Easy enough to do actually, if you aren't paying attention. Hooking A to B, instead of A to A, and vice versa.

No inspector signed off on that installation before the plane took off and crashed. If an inspector had looked at it, maybe he would have caught it.

Maybe I would have caught it. Or maybe by being there, I could have worked with the Maintenance guy like he wanted, but still fostered a work environment that promoted quality, and conscientiousness. Maybe that could have helped prevent the mistake.

I'll never know. And since I took a different path, I wasn't involved.

But in another parallel universe, I made the choice to go there.

I have to wonder what happened when I did.