Japanese Acro Ace's Death Still Inexplicable
Takahiro "Rock" Iwasaki was the first, and arguably the best,
professional acrobatic pilot in Japan, and headed the nation's only
civilian demonstration team, AiRock.
When Rock died in the April 21 crash of his Pitts Special, it
seemed like one of those inexplicable things. Now the final report
on his mishap has been released, and even though the commission
made a determination of probable cause, their explanation is
unlikely to persuade his legion of fans -- or stop the growth of
his legend.
Rock's brightly painted
plane -- a popular subject for Japanese plane modelers, with
updated kits released annually as sponsors came and went, changing
the team's decorations -- was on a routine practice flight, a
near-daily ritual for aerobatic competitors. He was flying at about
500 feet when the plane turned and plunged into the ground. He may
have been trying to conduct a split-S, but no one will ever really
know what was on his mind.
The Pitts struck the ground hard in a nose-down attitude and
collapsed to one side. Iwasaki was killed instantly by
nonsurvivable deceleration forces. There was no fire, and the
investigation found no preimpact deficiencies in the machine.
The special commission of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure
and Transport -- Japan has so little GA activity that it does not
have a standing accident investigation authority, unlike other
developed nations -- found that pilot error was the most probable
cause, but potential causal factors included Rock's hay fever, the
medications he took to combat it, and even his nearsightedness.
Iwasaki, 53, a former JASDF fighter pilot, wore glasses. The
commission speculated that he might have lost the glasses during
hard maneuvering. Alternatively, his vision may have been blurred
by hay fever, or he could have been made drowsy by antihistamines
he took to combat the allergy.
Iwasaki loved to fly and to promote aviation in Japan. The
nation was as air-minded as any before World War II, but the war
saw devastation visited on Japan from the air, and the postwar
period saw aviation completely banned. While Japan has world-class
military and airline aviation these days, general aviation in the
island empire never recovered. Rock Iwasaki and the Airock team
brought the idea of flight to thousands every year.
Some may say that the Japanese character, or Japanese culture,
produces people more oriented to consensus and amity than the sort
of bumptious individualists that crave the freedom of flight -- but
Rock Iwasaki's life and career gave the lie to this stereotype.
In the memorial that Iwasaki probably would have asked for,
himself, the Airock team announced in May that they were going to
continue, and they went on to continue to fly their airshow
schedule. They have noted a phenomenon of Rock Iwasaki pictures,
patches, t-shirts and all kinds of Rock ephemera showing up in
vendor booths. "It probably means that Rock is participating in the
airshow from the sky!" his teammates say.
It may have been an error, a momentary oversight, a lost pair of
glasses that prematurely terminated the life of Takahiro "Rock"
Iwasaki -- but whatever it was, it could only kill the man, not the
legend.
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