A Memorial to UND Pilots Past-Another Dowdy Report By
Dodds-Glenda Miskin

In reference to the poorly researched article about
the UND pilot accident last week, in the first line of
the article Mr. Dodd writes “The timing of UND's first
injury airplane crash in more than 20 years was
ironic” and later writes that UND has had “2
fatalities in the last 20 years”.

 All Mr. Dodds would have had to have done was to go
to the  NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board)
AVIATION ACCIDENT/INCIDENT DATABASE and type in
University of North Dakota.  I did and the search
brought back 76 incidents and accidents in UND piloted
planes-many of them covered by his own paper!  Let’s
look at the last ten years:

The most recent NTSB Identification: CHI03FA057.
Accident occurred Saturday, January 18, 2003 in Hill
City, MN. Aircraft: Cirrus Design Corp. SR-22,
registration: N9523PInjuries: 2 Fatal.  Here the
report says that According to Cirrus Design/University
of North Dakota records, the UND Pilot completed the
SR-22 training course on December 12, 2002 and died a
month later, January 18, 2003 in Hill City, MN  The
flight lesson entitled "IFR Flight (Non-rated)" was
not conducted.

The next accident occurred Wednesday, November 24,
1999 in HELENA, AL, Aircraft: Hughes 369HS,
registration: N395WM; Injuries: 2 Fatal.
“A flight instructor reported to NTSB that he had
given the pilot a biennial flight review on January
15,1999. The pilot completed an aircraft
standardization course for the McDonnell-Douglas model
500 helicopter, conducted by the University of North
Dakota, on May 15, 1999. According to the University
of North Dakota, the pilot was not signed off for a
biennial flight review after the training.”

Another Accident NTSB Identification: CHI96FA029.
occurred NOV-10-95 at FOND DU LAC, WI , Injuries: 2
Fatal. The pilot Trevor Acheson, a  junior in aviation
had a Commercial pilot's license and was enrolled in
Flight Instructor Certification Course at the
University of North Dakota (UND), Grand Forks, North
Dakota. The UND Sigma Nu fraternity brothers Trevor
Acheson and Richard Cadieux were memorialized at UND
along with Daniel McAlpine and Philip Steffen, UND
Sigma Nu members who also were killed in a plane crash
in 1990.


These reports of fatalities are many and include UND
pilots who drink, fly, and die such as
 NTSB Identification: CHI01FA001.the incident where
the 22-year-old UND flight instructor
 died in a crash at Rapid City Regional Airport one
day after being charged with his second drunken
driving offense in two and a half years.  And who
could forget China Air Pilot Chuang Meng-Rong the
former UND student pilot who had been drinking before
the jetliner he controlled crashed killing 264 people
in Japan on 26 April 1994?

Of course if you think back, you can remember back to
April 23, 1992, when the two UND planes collided  in
Branson Missouri when they were doing an air show.
NTSB Identification: CHI92LA131A and CHI92LA131B,
Injuries: 2 Fatal.


As fatalities are high as you can well imagine the
record of UND injuries are high too.  In Walker, MN an
accident occurred Saturday, July 14, 2001 where the
pilot and his two passengers were injured  NTSB
Identification: CHI01LA215 tells us that the pilot
checked his UND manual but crashed anyway.
There was an incident on Mar-22-99, a BE-400-A
Aircraft, N3196, owned by the First Security Bank NA
Trustee of Salt Lake City, Operated by the University
of North Dakota at Grand Forks. This was a training
flight where the pilot and his two passengers were
injured in the helicopter they crashed.

The list is longer than I have room for here, but with
all this information, much of it reported on by his
own paper, how could Dodds have missed this? Another
Dowdy Report By Dodds-Glenda Miskin