Originally Posted by
pilotmike
Really? It sounds eminently sensible to me. Without wishing to be too personal, everyone gets to an age where they not only start becoming a danger to themselves, but also to others if allowed to continue to instruct, ie. have innocent people's lives in their hands. This instructor was 78, and this accident helps to illustrate my point. Most people are able to make that difficult decision for themselves. Unfortunately others have accidents such as this to prompt them. And some need the decision to be taken for them.
I was exposed to such a problem when learning to glide in the 80s. The most senior and experienced instructor who was in his 70s, needed to be lifted into and out of the rear seat of the (canvass and wood) K13 glider, due to an injury from a former flying accident. He would habitually ask the student to take full control - even complete novices - then he would light up from the back seat and puff away. As they were rollups, often a glowing piece of the fag would drop to the 'floor', and you just had to pray it would self-extinguish before setting the whole show alight. I always hoped to goodness he wouldn't light up when we were above 3,000', and would deliberately 'fall' out of the thermal if I smelled him light up, keeping a very discerning nose out for the change in smell of the standard tobacco smoke to something more sinister, and a keen eye on the airbrake to get us down pronto if I did smell that the glider was catching alight.
I believe this practice continued into the 1990s with him being in his 80s and even less able, but still not giving up on the airborne fags. The odd thing was, nobody had the balls or the strength of character to tell him to stop doing it, such was the misplaced trust and respect placed in him, as founder of the gliding club, whilst he continued this highly questionable (some would say completely idiotic) practice.
Reading this story makes me think we may have learned at the same club, but I did not start until 1991 and the elderly instructor was an increasingly rare visitor, I don't think it is relevant to this case but it must be very hard for club members when there is a senior member that really should hang up their goggles, but is reluctant to do so.