GAPAN recognises Airship Captain's bravery
Captain Mike Nerandzic was one of the most experienced airship pilots in the world. His career in aviation began in 1977 when he learned to fly following studies in Aeronautical Engineering at the University of New South Wales. He worked as an instructor at the Navair Flying School, before flying a range of single and twin engined aircraft, as a corporate pilot, amassing some 4,800 fixed wing hours, and then joined Airship Industries in 1986 to fly airships, completing training in the USA in February 1987. In 1991, he transferred to the Lightship Group, where his wealth of experience and easy management style led to him becoming Assistant Director of Operations in Europe, and later in Australia and Asia. He continued to fly the A60 and A150 class airships on contract deployments across 23 countries, amassing nearly 10,000 airship hours over 25 years.
On Sunday 12 June 2011, Captain Mike Nerandzic was Pilot in Command of the A60 Lightship ‘Spirit of Safety 1’, one of two airships leased by Goodyear for marketing flights throughout Europe. He had taken off at 18.00 hrs, with one photographer and two television reporters on board, to film and photograph the Hessenfest festival in Germany. On return to Reichelsheim Airfield at 20.30 hrs that evening, for an as-yet unclear reason, the airship made a very firm landing and stopped abruptly and uncharacteristically short of the ground crew – the type of airship being flown has no braking capability and normally relies on ground friction to slow its progress towards the groundcrew on landing. The single undercarriage leg had collapsed and a fuel line was ruptured.
One of the passengers, photographer Joachim Storch, reported a strong smell of petrol in the cabin area, followed almost immediately by a fire. The television reporter in the front right seat, panicked at the sight of flames, tore off her seat belt, and jumped out through the open starboard window of the gondola - which is the emergency exit – and causing an immediate loss of ‘total weight’ in the airship.
With both engines stopped, the airship was still on the grass field, well short of the groundcrew and the essential ballast shot-bags, vital to offset the weight loss of any exiting passengers. As the fire began to take hold, however, it must have become evident to Captain Nerandzic that urgent action was required if he was to save the lives of his two remaining passengers.
According to Joachim Storch, rather than continue to complete the emergency flight procedures, Captain Nerandzic then turned and reached behind to open the single door on the port side of the gondola, which was locked for flight, and helped to move the camera equipment that partially blocked this exit. Unlocking this door would - and did - allow both remaining passengers to jump clear, but the weight loss would immediately cause the burning airship to rise into the air; it caused it to rise to a height of 150 feet. Captain Nerandzic would have been fully aware that this would be the result of his action and, irrespective of the circumstances that led to the predicament of the airship, this conscious, selfless act to save the lives of others, before thinking of his own, was a highly courageous act.
As the fire slowly engulfed him, Captain Nerandzic remained at the controls and continued to attempt to bring the aircraft to earth using free-ballooning techniques, which included operating the gas valves to vent helium, and then ultimately the envelope rip-line to tear open the airship. He did not survive.
In deliberately assisting his passengers to jump clear of the airship, without any vital exchange of ballast, Captain Mike Nerandzic knowingly and selflessly put his passengers’ lives before his own. He is accordingly, posthumously, recognised for this ultimate act of bravery with the Guild’s Award for Gallantry.