Brian Perry

Insensitive is a synonym for uncaring & thoughtless. As I have already said, out of the 3000+ volunteer pilot on AF volunteer pilot there are a lot of responsible aviators who are careful, sensible and not prone to take chances. But there has to be and are the opposite. Pushing their abilities into dangerous situations (familiarity breeds contempt). The get away with it and that empowers them to uncaring & thoughtless actions which can and do lead them into making more daring situations. If this poster is a pilot they are the type of pilot that AF needs to weed out of their volunteer pilot list. I can only wonder if the two pilots that lost control of their aircraft ever exposed their own family members to the same situations that they allowed to happen with their AF passengers. Insensitive is also a synonym for uncaring & thoughtless.

Actually families are decimated all over the world every day with wars, starvation, all kinds of killing and maiming. But this particular family decimation is mine and hopefully your family is not decimated at some time also. As you have said "Everything in life carries risk. Get used to it." Here is what my families decimation is: On the 28 June 2017, a plane crashed upside down into the ground at an angle of 30°, flipping over to the right side facing in the direction from which it had come. When that plane finally came to rest the first third of the aircraft had been compressed into the rear section; within that smashed front section was our daughter and granddaughter. The investigation by the ASTB indicates that from the time the aircraft left the ground our daughter and granddaughter had only seventy seconds of life remaining, seventy final seconds of abject terror as they plummeted upside down towards the ground. After fifty years of marriage, raising two children, both of whom made extensive contributions to their community, we are left without the single most rewarding outcome that any parent could ever hope for; enjoying our daughter and her daughter moving into their futures, growing up, finding love and yes, losing love. We will no longer share the joys of their lives, knowing that we as parents/grandparents were behind them with our love, experience and wisdom, to help to make their journeys easier. But instead we will spend the rest of our lives mourning, endeavouring to put our lives back together somehow. And while the grief might get easier with time, it will always be a shadow over what was, what is and what will always be. because of an avoidable mistake. For twenty years we lived on a small farm of eight hectares; it was mostly self sufficient with its own water collection and heating/cooking was provided by our own wood lot. As my wife and I grew older, we planned eventually to subdivide the property once that option became available with regards to town planning. In 2015 we finally obtained permission to divide the property into blocks; we submitted the plans of the development which were subsequently approved. The figures estimated that, after sales, we would profit between $2.5 and $3.0 million. However, the psychological and emotional trauma following our tragic loss made it inconceivable to remain in our family home. Together with my wife of 52 years we had to leave. In such a short time frame, there was little interest in the purchase of the property other than from developers; we incurred a huge financial loss forced to sell the land for $.7 million. I subsequently spent 25 days in a mental health institution, the “Black Dog” still circles but anti-depression medication keeps it at bay. All this was paid for out of the public purse. My lovely wife has also suffered many health issues due to the stress requiring ongoing doctors and specialist intervention and medication, including anti-depression medication, again paid for out of the public purse. My son has suffered a marriage breakdown and now lives with us, working part time, claiming unemployment benefit and managing depression with medication. I leave you, the reader, to add up the costs to us and to the Commonwealth of Australia. My wife and I are in our early seventies and our son has just turned fifty. Those final years we dreamed of and planned for are now destroyed and so are we. But, I suppose we will have to just "Get used to it". Just pray that one day you and yours never have to just "Get used to it".

My name is Brian Perry, I am the father of Tracy (nee’ Perry) Redding and the grandfather of Emily Redding. I am reading comments in this forum and thank you for the comments I have read. There is powerful group of people who are fighting hard to push back against the changes in the legislation both in the near past and into the future. These No. one stake holders had already brought a legal case to stop the legislation, they failed. Now they have started to crusade Senators to stop its introduction to the Federal Parliament to prevent it becoming law. Now my first point is there is only one group that can claim the status as the Number one stake holders in this matter and that is all the many people who have been left to deal with the mess that had been left after the two Angel Flight crashes. They have not bloody got even close to that title. Another point I would like to make is that Emily was suffering from the terrible disease of Anorexia Nervosa contrary to what has been mentioned in this forum. And it was only four month since the family had discovered her condition and also discovered later that she had been fighting the disease for the last six years. Yes that is right! , six years and nobody knew. If anyone has had the same problem themselves or in their family they would understand how that happens. It was not because nobody cared. After we all became aware we started a three month (leading up to the fatal crash) period of driving to Adelaide and back in the same day. That was a 900 km round trip, sometimes three times a week. Why? Because we were trying to keep Emily at school. Grandfather (me) was the person who was doing the driving. Why? It was costing $1200.00 a week for specialist visits. Grandfather took up the job to allow the father to keep working. I am seventy three years old, after two months of this gruelling routine I was getting totally exhausted both emotionally and physically. Tracy, after seeing what it was doing to me arranged an Angel Flight every two weeks. It was my inability to continue that sent them to their deaths. That clears up the other myth out there in pilot world! “Why did they not take a commercial Flight? “They must have been too tight with their money”. That really hurt me in particular. Now with regards to CASA. I can only say I have the utmost respect for both ATSB and CASA. They always answered my phone calls and ready to answer any questions I had. I can tell all that they are two organisations that everyone should be proud of. They contacted me six months ago apologising for the time they were taking with the second part of the report, saying they were limited in what they could legislate and wished they could do more for making community service flights safer. The so called Number one’s say they are over legislated. I don’t know about that, but what I do know is that state and national road legislation is the most extensive legislation in the Commonwealth of Australia. Is that working? Just look the latest number of road deaths to see if legislation solves a problem. Angel Flight has Approx. 3000+ pilots on their list of volunteers, does anyone dare to say there are no “Drongo Pilots“in the ranks. Remember the foresaid road deaths I mentioned. It has been alluded to in this forum that Angel Flight must have hands on to weed these Drongo pilots off their list. So far they say it is CASA’s responsibility, it’s their fault. Why would Angel Flight not want to be pro active in making sure their private Pilots are the “Best of the Best”? Easy, they do not want to use any of their $2,000000+ (Google their financial Reports), and remember that when they come begging for more money. The only way to end these incidents is to become PRO ACTIVE and bring in a system of oversight of all pilots, planes and tasks asked of them. When I was a younger man I flew gliders (some would say real flying), don’t want to go there. But the one thing I did learn was an air craft flying (or falling) is no place to be when something goes wrong or oneself goes wrong and it doesn’t matter how high you are off the ground. Just under 2000 flights I never came near the edge. There was no way I would make it easier for the chance at death to get any closer than what it was already. But apparently some of Angel Flight pilots do and they are the ones that Angel Flight needs to take out and not just wait for natural selection to do if for free. I am not trying to destroy Angel Flight. As it is they are already doing a good job themselves.