Hallo people, We are not fliers, but very close, long standing friends of Pat Smallman the lady who died yesterday in the fielding crash. We are in London and had been friends of Pat for over 30 yrs. Mary, my wife travelled with Pat to Africa on 3 month safari's testing the boundaries and exploring the depths of forests for Gorilla's and we have lost one of the warmest, friendliest, funniest, lovliest live wires you could ever wish to meet. One so full of life and always, even at her age wishing to grow even stronger by learning, she tested boundaries of her life, but was as responsible as anyone in how she executed what she attempted - careless she was not. We did not know the instructor, but another young life taken too. I thank you sincerely for the offers of condolences in the earlier posts.
I did not wish to hijack a predominantly 'flying and aviation forum, I frequent a few forum in the UK myself and know how powerful they can be so what I would like to say here, now that I found these comments about the situation there in Fielding is please do whatever the industry can to change things if you can or if they are needed in the Aerodrome there if you feel it is needed, or anywhere else for that matter where small aircraft are vulnerable. I see someone saying for a 1000 $ something could have been done which could have made this avoidable - is there anyone out there pushing for these things to been applied?
Two very wholsesome people have had their lives snatched away from them in a flash and whilst I am sure all over the world these kind of losses are felt as painfully as these are here in this Fielding crash, but it's those who are in positions of strength within the industry who can change things for those who follow so that families and fellow flyers can be sound in the knowledge that things like this cannot happen.
The poor lad who survived this in the 2nd plane will have to live with this too, no matter where the fault lies eventually, it is not something easily lived with.
I wish all of you flyers, either professionals or just doing what Pat did living the dream a safe future and trust someone somewhere can make this a safer journey.
We will miss her greatly as will her family and other friends we never got to meet, this puts a human element to the techi side of things so please, if you can, press for safety changes. Try not let their lives be lost in vain.
Thank you.
Andrew and Mary Pain
Blackheath London