From: greg@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Gregory R. TRAVIS)
Subject: 57E squawks Hijack, part 3
Keywords: AFTERMATH
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 92 17:10:00 GMT

Some random thoughts about the whole thing:

1.  Were there things I could have done differently?  Certainly.
First of all I probably should never have divulged that I was
a pilot.  But at the time I did, I did not believe I was going
to be hijacked.

It was also very difficult to determine WHAT to do.  Things seemed
to lurch from one situation to another - I'll wax poetic and say
I was just a passenger on the train of destiny.  *urp*

People kept coming up to me and telling me how well I handled the
situation.  Well, I don't see it that way at all.  There just were
not THAT MANY CHOICES to be made.  Like an engine failure at night
in IMC, you just don't have a whole lot of options.  Conversely,
you don't have a lot of ways to screw up.  It was pretty much
stimulus-response the whole time.

Should I have tried to jump him?  Perhaps.  But I did not know
anything about him.  He did tell me that
he did not drink.  Drugs?  Crazy?  Scared?  Agitated?  Mad as
hell?  Yeah, I think it was something like that.  Perhaps I could
have overpowered him.  Next time I might try.  However, it was not
until I was actually in the plane that I began to have really
MORTAL thoughts.  Before that I was operating under the assumption that
I was going to be able to talk this guy out of what he was doing.  That
I could convince him to "go away."  That I could conclude the episode
at a low conflict level.  Had I felt more directly threatened, had he
started hitting me, I might have tried to get him.

2.  Has it been, in any way, "fun"?  No, not at all.  It has been personally
embarassing to me.  I am sick of it.  What kind of a goof-off is alone on a
Saturday night washing his plane?

3.  What was his mindset?  I had a very hard time sizing up my passenger
on the ground.  He was obviously very nervous and very mad.  Life just
wasn't going right for him and he wanted to make a statement.  This
was perhaps the most difficult of all.  He did not want money, or cars,
or anything.  He just wanted to make a scene either by killing some
authority figure or taking hostages.  Because he did not really have
a plan, I was unable to think very far ahead in the situation.

4.  What about my choices of airports?  I dunno.  Had I known Peoria was as
close as it was would I have gone there?  Probably not; remember that I
was operating under the false impression that things at Kankakee would
be smooth and co-ordinated.



Best quote, from the defense lawyer:
	"If his gun had gone off in the plane, would that, you know,
have caused a crash?"
Me:	"Probably, if it went off into my head."  Ta-dum!

She was, of course, referring to rapid decompression.  I explained
that my Cessna 172 did not have the pressurization option.

Best dilemma:
	There was talk about reimbursing me for the fuel costs, etc.
They asked me how much it costs me to fly my plane.  I said about $30/hour,
at 3 hours (roundtrip time to IKK) that it cost me about $90-100 for the
whole incident.  Now, I couldn't care less about the money in this case
and I never asked nor expected to be reimbursed.  I got to thinking -
I CAN'T take the money, can I?  I have to at least SHARE the expense
with my "passenger."  Gee, if I had only finished that commercial back
then...


Well, I gotta go work on my airplane...

greg, N5457E, 'packin
-- 
Gregory Reed Travis					D P S I
	
Data Parallel Systems Incorporated	greg@cica.indiana.edu