N757KN - A Cessna 152

I remember that tail number vividly. When I first started taking flying lessons, this was the aircraft's registration. A Cessna 152 that was large enough to fit two people but small enough to practically be on each others laps.

FRG (Farmingdale Republic Airport) is a busy, tower controlled field in Long Island. I lived in Brooklyn and my dad would drive me an hour to the airfield for my flying lessons. We were driving home after my very first lesson and the radio news was reporting a light airplane accident in the vicinity of FRG. After calling the family to assure them we were safe, we called the flight school and it was confirmed. N757KN was involved in a mid-air collision with another aircraft on short final.

Only two hours earlier, I tied down N757KN on the ramp and my instructor signed my logbook for the first time. It was a 1.4 hour flight with one landing in VFR day conditions. The feeling that I had flown an aircraft, which had now been involved in an accident and ended in the deaths of 2 people, was overwhelming.

I spent the next week wondering if I wanted to continue taking flying lessons. I learned some facts about flying that the general public just doesn't know. Here's what I learned...

Your odds of Death by...

• Cardiovascular disease: 1 in 2
• Smoking (by / before age 35): 1 in 600
• Car trip, coast-to-coast across the USA: 1 in 14,000
• Bicycle accident: 1 in 88,000
• Tornado: 1 in 450,000
• Train, coast-to-coast: 1 in 1,000,000
• Lightning: 1 in 1.9 million
• Bee sting: 1 in 5.5 million
• U.S. commercial jet airline: 1 in 7 million

Number of Accidental Deaths Per Year By Cause in the USA

• 100 on commercial flights
• 850 by electrocution
• 1000 on a bicycle
• 1452 by accidental gunfire
• 3000 by complications to medical procedures
• 3600 by inhaling or ingesting objects
• 5000 by fire
• 5000 by drowning
• 5300 by accidental poisoning
• 8000 as pedestrians
• 11,000 at work
• 12,000 by falls
• 22,500 at home
• 46,000 in motor car accidents

After spending some time researching facts regarding aviation safety, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to continue my flying lessons. My parents then brought me to the flight school for a sit down talk with the owner, remember I was 13 at the time. It was the first of many good decisions that I made regarding my aviation career. I will soon learn that their will be many obstacles on my quest to become an airline pilot.

I do not know what happened to N757KN after the accident. The aircraft, however, will remain forever in my memory as the first aircraft I ever flew.