Risk Management Magazine

In the summer of 1990, I was a new warrant officer just out of flight school who was eager to learn to fly, so I volunteered for a mission with a first lieutenant. Our mission was to support our state’s anti-drug division, which later became nationally known as the RAID program.

As time goes on, our comfort and confidence with our aircraft inevitably grows, and what used to take intense concentration becomes easy to do.

We didn’t brief a change in plans and because of it, I watched as my friend walked toward certain death from the main rotor blades.