ERAU Prescott Suffers Tremendous Loss
Mike Corradi and Bob
Sweginnis were best friends. They worked together at the Prescott,
Arizona campus of Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. They played
together in the sky. On Saturday, August 28, 2004, they died
together just before eight-thirty in the morning, when an aerobatic
routine they were preparing for the upcoming Prescott Air Show went
wrong. Their American Champion Super Decathlons (file illustration
below) touched; bowhunters who had interrupted their pursuit of
antelope to watch the aerobatic display told Yavapai County
deputies that the wing of one plane "clipped" the other.
The planes slammed separately to the ground in open scrubland;
only a forlorn tail hinted that one pile of debris had once been an
airplane. Rescuers were called immediately by the hunters, and came
quickly, but there was no one alive to rescue. The pilots were both
pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Fire crews soaked the
area, but only as a precaution, as there was no fire.
Corradi and Sweginnis shared a love for their country (both were
retired Air Force officers), for flight, and for aerobatics, at
which they were both highly skilled. Saturday's was the latest of
many practice sessions.
“They had been up seven or eight times practicing this
particular routine,” Gwen Raubolt, ERAU’s public
relations director, told reporter Ken Hedler of the Prescott Daily
Courier.
This is the first loss to the Riddle community in several years
(Prescott lost a student and instructor on May 27, 2000, and
Daytona lost four lives in a midair on Sept. 11, 1998), but it is
the most significant such tragedy in memory, because the victims
were highly-regarded and well-liked faculty members.
"This accident is a great loss to us all. Mike and Bob were
great friends, teachers and mentors. Embry-Riddle offers its
deepest sympathy to Mike and Bob’s families and grieves with
them," Chancellor Dan Carrell said in an email message to the
university community, which began, "It is with a heavy heart..."
Other officials made similarly somber statements as the grim news
cast a pall over both campuses, where preparations to welcome the
Class of 2008 continue (the new school year starts Monday).
Robert Sweginnis (pictured right),
64, is familiar to many in the aerobatic community. For years he
has been known as a competitor -- flying the Decathlon -- and a
judge. He was a key man on the Aviation Safety Improvement Program
committee. He had been an Accident Investigation instructor in the
Air Force, from which he retired as a Major. He remained very
committed to aviation safety -- a search for his name will produce
numerous online references -- and, with Richard H. Wood,
co-authored "Aircraft Accident Investigation" (1995), one of the
standard texts in the field. He had worked at the University of
Southern California before coming to Riddle.
Michael Corradi, 55, was the chief flight instructor for the
Prescott campus. As chief instructor, he was responsible for all
the flight instructors that teach the campus's 800-plus flight
students, plus scheduling students and aircraft. He was the faculty
advisor and instructor to the popular aerobatic club at the
Prescott campus -- a volunteer position his friend Sweginnis had
held before him. He also was an aerobatic competitor, instructor
and judge. He was events coordinator for the Prescott Air Fair. He
was a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the USAF, where he flew, among
other types, FB-111A strategic fighter-bombers.
The Prescott Air Fair will go on, without these two performers.
In their place will be a memorial observance, of what kind remains
to be determined. Both men were ranked as Associate Professors at
the university, and lived in Prescott.
The airplanes destroyed in the accident were owned by the
university. The NTSB will investigate the mishap.
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