The NTSB Released the Final Report on Joe Masessa’s Plane Crash
I’m still processing it.
The report confirms what I said all along, that there was nothing wrong with the plane.
It also confirms everything Joe said to me six months before, on the night when he described exactly what he thought would happen and it did. Even the turns are correct. It is exactly what he said and he looked me in the eye when he said it.
What the report does not answer is the question of intention, which is what I still struggle with even knowing all that I know. I think I understand the intention and then I wrestle with it.
But of the facts we know that:
- You didn’t tell anyone on the ground about it
- The engines were going full power
- You didn’t turn left to pull out of it
- And the only piece of video of the crash echos the above
- There was nothing wrong with the plane
He even told the crew chief he was not doing maneuvers that day. Why was I the one you told?
I thought over the past two years there might have been someone other than me that Joe would have also told, but that does not appear to be the case. He had girls in his life at all times. He was super smart and good looking. I guess I still wonder why I seem to be the only one that knew his secrets. I knew about the CTE years before and I knew about the sequence and the result of the crash six months before. I will probably think about that the rest of my life as well.
After he died, I received all kinds of emails from people who had either dated him, worked with him, flown with him, did business with him. They all had questions about “Do you think it could have been…?”
And each time I would tell them that this is what they would find. They would find there was nothing wrong with the plane.
Joe, I will never forget what you said, where you were standing and what you were wearing the day you said it. I will think about it until my dying day. I will think about why it is that it wasn’t the first major confidence you ever told me. And as you well know, I like everyone else, will miss you forever.
I have spent two years not wanting to accept what I know in the face of an NTSB investigation. I didn’t want to go to the memorial service because I wasn’t ready and it wasn’t the right place for me to have any kind of closure. It isn’t how I think of you.
The report helps but it is not closure because the only way there could be closure would be to hear some answers from you and we know that’s not possible. I will never have the answers regarding intentions.
I did get back into the cockpit of a plane and fly again after all this. You would have hated if I didn’t fly again.I thought about you before I took off and after I landed. I haven’t flown much this year because this has been the year where expenses on property and autos rose through the roof. But I look forward to flying again. It’s the greatest sense of peace when all is right.
I can’t walk outside without looking up to watch the planes and thinking about all that has passed.
Mostly, I am just thinking out loud because I am still processing it all and will be for some time.
But there are people who wanted to know when the final report has been released. It has. You can read it here. https://www.accidents.app/summaries/accident/20191102X80415