Please remain in your seat. We expect turbulence.
I’ve been fortunate to have worked on many safety training projects covering a wide variety of topics in a range of seemingly disparate industries. I’ve stood on top of an active nuclear reactor. I’ve shot on top of a railroad tank car as 90,000 gallons of ammonia was being offloaded. I’ve positioned myself in the middle of highways as firetrucks raced by me, inches from my head. And I’ve stood mere yards away from 747s taking off in the middle of the night. I’ve sat through countless pre-shoot comprehensive safety briefings with my “handlers”, aka escorts. Whether my locale was an active runway during rush hour or major chemical plant during peak production, one single act of self-preservation is ingrained in my mind: if my escort starts running, I start running. This symbiotic relationship has often kept me from stepping in it - so to speak. And because of the high degree of professionalism and situational awareness of my safety officers, I’ve never felt that my life was in danger.
Except once.
On the taxiway at Reagan, Washington, DC. Traffic was somewhat light, which didn’t make for good video. Until the airport closed while President Obama flew over in Marine One. Which backed up traffic and I got my shots.
In the late 2000’s, I was awarded a comprehensive, multi-year and multi-title safety project for the FAA. I’d previously created some work for the aviation industry, most notably in 1988 animating the crash of Continental Airlines Flight 1713 in Denver. Long story short, I was hired by Continental’s legal team to model and animate in 3D the theory that the crash was caused (in part) by wake turbulence. I was given reams of printed data and I had to design a way to visualize their scenario with the burgeoning 3D tools I had at the time. This was part of the package presented to the NTSB during their investigation. Ironically, I would be hired by the FAA in 2009 to create training projects that explore the human factors that were among the causal factors of that accident I’d worked on 20 years earlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Airlines_Flight_1713
The project was exhilarating and rewarding in many ways. I got to work with and interview pilots, safety and human factors experts, air traffic controllers, the chairman of the NTSB, emergency response crews and even a real astronaut. The project took me to airports and control towers from coast to coast, to the cockpit and high altitude simulators at the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI), to the academic research halls of USC, to rides in WWII seaplanes, to dark North America radar tracking stations and to the investigation rooms at the NTSB (during which, in a very sad twist of fate, I saw first hand the wreckage from the 2011 Reno Air Races crash - I’d shot the races a few years earlier for a TV commercial during our time in Reno).
One of my coolest experiences was a ride-along in a restored WWII Grumman Goose (left) in Anchorage. I was invited to shoot some Alaskan wilderness footage during some lake touchdown and take-off training. This particular Goose was outfitted with camera portholes, making it perfect for my tasks. This is very similar to the Consolidated PBY Catalinas my dad photographed in 1944 (right) during his WWII tour of duty as a Seabee at Ondonga Airfield, New Georgia, Solomon Islands. Click here for more information on the Goose: https://www.goosehangar.com/ourgoose
And, of course, I got to spend a lot of time on the runways, taxiways and ramps at small airfields from Frederick, Maryland to Talkeetna, Alaska; at medium airports like Reno; and at large airports from DC (Reagan), Baltimore, Seattle and Anchorage.
Which is where I felt actual fear for my life for the first and only time in my 40-year career.
The only fear I had on this particular flight was losing my GoPro - with a little claustrophobic anxiety mixed in. We both survived.
In addition to passenger traffic, Anchorage is a major cargo hub between the US and Asia. The 747s start arriving in the afternoon for fuel and rest, then take off again in the evening. Whenever I needed to get out on the airfield, of course we had to schedule it so I’d have an escort. I could get right up to the boundary marker (next to the active runway) but not beyond it unless the runway was closed. I had plenty of daytime footage in the can but needed nighttime footage of markers and lights. And the evening cargo rush hour was the perfect time.
Shot next to the runway during Rush Hour #1, this is the kind of cargo plane that arrived every afternoon for refueling from Asia. Notice the location and size of outboard engine as you read below.
I arrived expecting my usual escort but he was not available. So I was assigned to a green, young newcomer who looked all of 16. I told him what kinds of shots I needed - right next to the lighted runway marker with (hopefully) a taxiing 747 passing by - and he shrugged and said, “OK.” I picked a lighted sign that was perfect - the sun was setting in the background and the planes were taxiing towards me. He alerted the tower of our presence and got permission for me to move into position. As I was setting up, a 747 began its taxi towards me. I misjudged just how big these planes are - or more importantly, how far their wings and engines extended beyond the taxiway into the area I was standing. As I was positioning my camera, I eyed the outer engine coming right at me.
One of the topics I had to cover in this project was ground crew safety, specifically how they needed to have heightened situational awareness when working around the aircraft, especially the engines (which are supposed to be off). Without getting into details, I was supplied investigative photos of what was left of a ground crew person who got sucked into an engine and the aftermath. I needed to craft a narrative/lesson based on this story. While I did not use the most graphic of those photos, they are ingrained in my memory.
“The Shot”
Which, not surprisingly, came to the forefront of my mind when that engine started coming towards me. They say ones life flashes before them just before death and I have to admit, mine did. As I consoled myself that my wife knew the location of my life insurance policy and my daughter would probably grow up OK without me, I looked around for some sort of anchor I could grab on to that would hopefully prevent me from succumbing to the intake forces of that engine. Nothing. My “if you run, I follow” safety training kicked in, so I looked for my escort who I expected to be behind me, but rather was leaning against his truck, on his phone, some 60 yards away! So much for that escape route. As that engine approached me, I prepared myself for what was about to happen.
The 747 passed over me without incident. After I got my shot (well, I WAS there to do a job…), I stomped back to the truck, a bit shaken, and sort of forcefully asked my escort why he let me get that close without warning. He said, in his best greenish matter-of-fact tone, that the pilot knew I was there (alerted by the Tower) and that he probably knew to keep that engine in very low power while he passed.
My flight back to the lower 48 was a long one. I upgraded to first class. And made a sizable dent in Alaska Airline’s bourbon payload.
At some smaller general aviation airports, taxiways (for planes) and roadways (for cars) share the same asphalt. Planes have the right-of-way. I needed to get a general shot of a plane moving along such a shared space. Little did I know that a clueless driver would come up behind me and unintentionally demonstrate the actual accident scenario I was simulating. At the last second, the driver veered to the right, narrowly avoiding driving right into the prop! All caught in living color…
Here’s a link to an opening montage I created for the project: