After our last sequence, my student rejoined in close formation on my right wing. I gave him a thumbs-up and a smart salute, then pointed to him with two fingers to indicate he was now the lead pilot. He nodded and I broke away hard to the left, generating some distance between us for the return to base.
As I descended through the initial point for the runway, I eased up the power and started to accelerate. I continued my descent to 100 feet above the beautiful shoreline of 8 Mile Beach near RAAF Base Williamtown, as I pointed directly at my squadron’s admin building.
My indicated speed was approaching 620 knots. I was still subsonic but pushing a lot of air with my Mirage, and the blue glow of the afterburner kept my speed high. Passing the perimeter fence, I dropped a few more feet to fly directly over the squadron building and the flight line of parked jets. I was moving fast and caught a glimpse of my squadron mates assembled near the flight line as I zorched past.
The many windows of the base buildings flexed as my pressure wave passed over them – thankfully, they didn’t break. The duty officer perched in the small control room announced, ‘That was Sully’, over the PA system in a laconic Aussie twang when I thumped the building.
It had been an eventful nine years since I performed my mini airshow over my frat house in a Cessna 150. This was a different display.
I slammed the throttle to idle, pulled up hard and snapped the jet into a hard left bank while applying maximum g to enter the landing pattern. My aircraft was enveloped in a cloud of ‘ectoplasm’: pilot slang for describing moisture in the air being compressed by pressure change and g-force, forming a vapour cloud around the jet.
As I rolled out on final approach, I eased up the power to maintain my speed until the runway threshold, then slid the power back and touched down. Emulating a top-fuel dragster, I deployed the drag chute and slowly decelerated to taxi speed with my chute billowing behind.
Exiting the runway, I cracked the canopy open and welcomed the fresh air into my tight cockpit. Sitting in the Mirage, I always felt like I was in a Formula 1 car, but this car had an afterburner. I would miss this extension of my being, this instrument of my passion. My return to the parking tarmac was deliberately slow; I knew this moment was not to be repeated, and I wanted to savour it.
My Aussie squadron mates were standing by with a firehose, primed and ready. They were all busy preparing for their flights, but the squadron had stopped for these few precious moments to commemorate the end of my military career.
Safely parked, I shut down the engine and hesitantly eased up the canopy. A base photographer followed the ground crew to my jet as I stared thoughtfully forward. I had survived nine years of dangerous high-performance flying, two carrier deployments and all the pressures connected to this extreme life. I was thankful and paid silent respect to my friends who had not been so fortunate. The photographer’s camera flashed at this moment, capturing my slight smile and pensive stare.
I climbed out of my Mirage and down the ladder to the tarmac, my old VF-114 helmet propped on the canopy railing. The firehose was charged and the water pressure almost knocked me over as I reached down and gripped my life vest inflation toggles, feigning that I would activate them to save myself from this dousing. My squadron mates were enjoying the spectacle of the Yank getting blasted, but there was respect and comradery flashing in their eyes.
My tour proved influential and a new RAAF was emerging as the F-18 Hornets began to arrive at the base. I felt proud to be part of that transformation.
My mates presented me with a bottle of champagne, and a few chugs of bubbly was my final act as a fighter pilot. As I walked off the flight line for the last time, I reviewed my military career. I’d flown in the forces of two countries and in 6 different aircraft types. I’d flown as low as 10 feet and as high as 55,000 feet. I’ve seen the curvature of the earth. I’d flown at zero airspeed and faster than twice the speed of sound. I survived 350 carrier landings without mishap. I was a Top Gun graduate. And I’d lost a lot of friends but I was able to walk away.
Yeah, I was thinking, that’s good enough.
Dripping wet, I walked away from this exciting life and into the world of commercial aviation.
*
In January 2016, I’m burdened after my last trip and mired in a month-long cycle of soul-searching. My aviation medical is due for renewal in February.
I have a vivid dream.
I’m flying at night; a supervised flight with a senior pilot observing. He puts me to the test, and I pass all the requirements. For some reason, I look down through the cockpit window and see a long road in an isolated area. At the end of the road is a car with its headlights on. I put down the wheels and flaps and land on that road, taxiing towards the waiting headlights. I shut down the engines and calmly climb from the aircraft on a ladder. The other pilots only stare in silence and don’t try to stop me.
My daughter is beside the car. She waves and smiles as I approach. I give her a big hug and together we drive away. I don’t look back.
I wake up with the realisation that I have to make a choice. I’ve been labelled a PTSD sufferer, but what does that really mean to me? I have to strip away the emotion, exposing the realities of persevering or ending my flying career.
Flying is my passion. I’ve dedicated my life to being a pilot, and not an ordinary one. Following the course to fly fighters off aircraft carriers required total commitment, superior performance and courage. I cherished every second I was strapped into those fire-breathing machines. The good dreams I have are centred on that exciting and dangerous life.
Now, I’ve survived something that science-fiction stories are made of. The Kevin Sullivan I invested all my time and resources to develop has been compromised, battered and thrown into a minefield without a map.
I’ve become very isolated – when you’ve been to the Moon, you can only talk to astronauts. I’m a self-exiled cave man, which I’ve adopted as a coping mechanism. If I stop flying, I’ll lose the security and structure of employment, but should I stay tethered to a workplace that will only complicate my life further?
The boundaries between PTSD and depression are blurred. I’ve resorted to medication to prolong my career, but the side effects have left me numb and robotic. For me, the medication does not prevent feeling worried or threatened, they only stop the body’s untethered release of chemicals in response to these feelings. Is this how I want to live my remaining years?
I have to face the truth: my passion has become a cross to bear.
This life-changing event has also damaged my daughter. She’s had to watch helplessly as my persona changed. She knows she could have lost her dad on this day and that is very confronting. It’s okay honey, I’m still here.
In my dream she was there to take me away, waiting for me with a big smile and relief in her sparkling eyes. She knew I had decided to stop, and she was happy.
That dream answers all my concerns, and I listen to it.
I meet with my specialist to discuss my position. He’s been monitoring my struggle, so my news is no surprise to him. He agrees it’s time for me to stop.
However, when I meet with Qantas medical, they seem a bit surprised.
‘I’m not okay,’ I repeat. ‘And if I truthfully answer the mental-health questions in my upcoming aviation medical, I won’t pass. What do you want me to do? Take the medical and fail, or just stop now?’
‘But you’re back flying.’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m okay. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay. PTSD doesn’t just go away. The company policies encourage us to self-report and . . . well, I just have.’
A month later, I’m back. I inform Qantas medical that I’m finished taking medication for my condition and that redeployment within the company isn’t an option.
My decision is irreversible. I’ve honoured my commitment to stop flying if I ever doubted my ability to continue. I made the courageous decision before it was made for me. I’ve been trying to na
vigate my way out of No Man’s Land, back to safety and salvation. If I need to leave something behind so I can move forward, then so be it.
*
In early July 2016, I am medically terminated. Medical termination acknowledges the serious nature of my injury and the catastrophic effects that PTSD can inflict on an employee.
On my last day at headquarters, I pose for a couple of photos with my close colleague, Captain Matt Hicks. He was the hero first officer on QF32, which suffered a severe engine failure in 2010. We exchange a quick handshake, and that’s my departure, done and dusted. I keep searching the ceiling for the balloons to fall and the confetti to be released, but it’s not to be.
I exit through the sliding doors and don’t look back. As I walk to my car, I summarise my commercial career.
I’d flown three different aircraft types for a total of 16,000 flight hours. I’d flown millions of miles and carried hundreds of thousands of passengers. I always delivered them safely to earth. I had been tested many times with equipment failure and environmental extremes and persevered. I had managed and survived what could have been one of the worst aviation accidents in modern history.
Yeah, I reckon that’s good enough.
The image of my daughter smiling in my dream is all the motivation I need as I drive away.
I have been in the air all my adult life. Now I’ve hung up my wings and joined the mortals.
EPILOGUE
‘The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.’ Henry David Thoreau
The story ends here, but the fight is far from over.
Qantas now uses the QF72 incident as a subject for recurrent training for pilots and cabin crew.
The surviving crew of QF72 are moving forward as best they can. Some are still at work, while some have left the company and its subsidiaries. I’ve mentioned a few of their names, with their permission. I hope you acknowledge them if your paths cross. Surviving the flight makes them some of the most experienced pilots and crew in Qantas; it also marks them as exceptional individuals.
I hope that by providing more detail, I’ve helped the QF72 passengers rest a bit easier. I salute them for their compassion and patience. Always keep your seatbelt fastened when you’re seated, okay?
Part of this story is a warning: I survived a catastrophic failure of automation and am raising a red flag. Humankind continues to inject more automation into our daily lives, and we must question why.
In the past two years, there haven’t been many automation failures in aviation, and I was starting to think that equipment and training were improving and awareness was increasing. Then, while this story is being written, there were two high-profile accidents involving the brand-new Boeing 737 MAX.
Lion Air JT610 was lost on 28 October 2018. A malfunctioning angle-of-attack sensor activated a stall protection mode not previously fitted to previous models of the 737 aircraft. The pilots fought as the confused protection system activated a nose-down control input. Ultimately, they lost control, and all 189 passengers and crew were killed.
In the new 737 MAX, a single angle-of-attack sensor supplies data to the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) incorporated to enhance the aircraft’s slow-speed stall characteristics through use of the pitch trim system. But what if that sensor malfunctions? It will still provide data to the MCAS and it could activate the protections. Has Boeing installed this system as a band-aid fix for poor aerodynamic performance? And how can pilots ‘save the day’ if they don’t know about the system or how it can falsely activate and if there is no published procedure to deal with its abnormal operation? Sounds a lot like QF72 . . .
Then, there was the disaster that was Ethiopian Airlines flight 302. On 11 March 2019, shortly after takeoff, the pilots of ET302 followed procedures to regain control of a 737 MAX aircraft after the automated control system triggered several pitch-downs. All 157 people on board were killed.
The Preliminary Report on Ethiopian Air flight ET320 is disturbing. This 737 MAX malfunctioned in a similar fashion to Lion Air JT610 five months earlier.
According to the initial report, the MCAS activated erroneously, generating several pitch-downs that the pilots instinctively tried to arrest. Even though they followed recommended procedures to deactivate the trim system, MCAS had already introduced heavy nose-down tail trim that the pilots could not physically overcome.
Boeing Aircraft Corporation is now under scrutiny for their perceived failure to detail the existence of this protection system in the 737 MAX differences course and in the Flight Crew Operating Manual.
Investigations continue but, once again, the Achilles heel of sensor malfunction and data corruption has reared its ugly head in automated aircraft.
The Federal Aviation Administration is also under scrutiny for allowing aircraft manufacturers to ‘self-certify’ their aircraft with reduced regulator oversight. Is the move to self-regulation due to a lack of funding and resources, or are they protecting their turf in the competition for the supply of passenger aircraft globally?
Following the disaster of ET302, Ethiopian Airlines grounded their 737 MAX aircraft. Aviation regulators worldwide quickly followed suit, banning MAX operation within its respective airspace. It has since been revealed that critical aircraft monitoring systems that could have averted these accidents were sold as optional equipment. Those systems are now going to be fitted as standard. But it does seem that safety sometimes now comes at an additional price.
The investigation continues into these two tragedies.
We trust aircraft manufacturers to design and build safe aircraft. We expect the government regulators to certify, through rigorous and independent testing, that the aircraft are safe to carry passengers. And we trust that airline operators will respond appropriately in the name of safety, as the CEO of Ethiopian Air did in the wake of an aircraft accident of this magnitude.
QF72 is classified as an accident – the result of automation that failed, in a similar way to the automation on the two MAX flights, in which the pilots were powerless to stop its activation. The recent Boeing events are reminders that safety must remain the number-one priority for aircraft manufacturers, governments and airlines.
*
In late 2018, California Highway Patrol officers were challenged when a Tesla went zorching down the freeway at 70 miles per hour on ‘autopilot’. A man was passed out in the driver’s seat, so intoxicated that he was unresponsive to their sirens and lights as they gave chase. The officers improvised: one car blocked traffic behind the Tesla while the other raced ahead and took position in front of it. The police vehicle slowed, forcing the automation to react and eventually bring the vehicle to a stop. The driver was charged with drink-driving.
*
There’s a price to pay when automation fails spectacularly.
Few have suffered more than Fuzzy Maiava. Fuzzy was employed by Qantas’s wholly owned subsidiary Jetconnect, based in New Zealand, and was working under different conditions to the Australian-based crew. He’s now on a disability pension.
The extreme forces generated during the pitch-downs inflicted serious injuries on Fuzzy. He suffered a compound fracture of his right fibula, meniscus tears on both knees, a fractured rotator cuff of his right shoulder and compression of the vertebrae in his lower spine, causing a permanent misalignment of his hips. His impact with the ceiling of the rear galley knocked him unconscious, and to this day, the resulting brain trauma causes unbalance and seizures.
He hasn’t driven a car since that flight and will never be able to work again. Continued steroid injections are responsible for a weight gain of up to 168 kilograms.
Fuzzy began to isolate himself from his family and society. In 2012 his marriage broke down, and he tried to take his own life later in that year. He was then committed, by court order, to a mental hospital for eight weeks. The New Zealand compensation system ensures his medical treatment will continue, but he lives on the poverty line. He faces a life
of medication for chronic pain and PTSD. The pain provides the triggers for nightmares.
On 7 October 2018, the ten-year anniversary of the QF72 accident, Fuzzy’s daughter was stuck by a speeding motorist while walking home. She suffered severe injuries and continues to be treated and rehabilitated in an Auckland hospital.
Fuzzy has briefed me personally on these ten torturous years and wanted it included in the story. He’s trying to move forward but his circumstances aren’t fair.
I am honouring his courage and resolve by sharing this here.
I continue to manage PTSD and adjust to an earthbound life. It isn’t easy but I’m actively trying to replace the bad memories and experiences with good ones. Sometimes I fly as a passenger; I’ve never been afraid to do that. I try to look out of the window as much as I can because I don’t like being tethered to our planet. I miss being up there, and I will fly as necessary in my travels to new and distracting destinations.
I wonder if the pilots controlling my fate know how terribly complicated their job can become in these automated machines. I am all for enhanced safety and technology in aviation. But is it the goal of tech companies to use automation to replace the pilot someday, or further diminish their contribution in operating an aircraft? The QF72 accident is the worst-case scenario for a modern pilot and pilots need to be prepared.
In the recent 737 MAX accidents, the pilots were ambushed by failed automation. They were engaged in their own knife-fight for survival, but were overcome. I feel gutted by their loss; this shouldn’t have happened. They didn’t stand a chance, even as they followed the recommended procedures.
I’m an advocate for pilots, regardless of where they live or what aircraft they fly. Aviation remains the noblest of professions. But to be able to successfully do their jobs, pilots must be trained effectively and aircraft design must not restrain them from performing their function as the last line of defence. I salute the pilots of the 737 MAX accidents, along with passengers and crew, and hope their sacrifice was not in vain.
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