USUA Club 1 Membership director
Folks,
Please excuse my intrusion into your thread, but I have a few things to say that may help in your understanding of this situation. My name is Phil Williams, and I am the membership director of USUA Flying Club 1. Jim Willess was my friend, flying companion, instructor, share partner, and a lot of other things. I have been in touch with the family since the day this saga started, and traveled to NM to search for Jim Myself.
First let me offer a special thanks to Larry Pardue, who is a member of this RV group. Larry flew countless missions looking for Jim, long after others gave up. He even flew a few at the request of myself and Jim family, and helped answer a lot of questions about the area.
Jim went missing on Feb 28, and by the next day his wife was trying to get a search going. When she was stonewalled in that effort, I personally contacted the NM state police, and the SAR coordinator for NM. Both were unaware of any missing aircraft, but after looking into the matter referred us to the Texas authorities. It took another 2 days to get the Air Force spun up and then subsequently the CAP. By 6 days post crash, the search was stopped, and everyone (except Larry and a few other diehard SAR guys) went home.
As you might imagine this was unacceptable. Over the following days and weeks, those of us that knew Jim and his flying style, scoured every scrap of information we could find. Including the radar data. less than 3 weeks after the incident, Jim's son Justin, and I both were convinced that the radar indication indicating a turn to the south could not be correct, but we could not find an open ear to our position.
During my personal search I was within 1 mile of where the aircraft was finally located last week. I will have to live for a long time with the decisions I made that prevented me from finding Jim, but suffice it to say I was alone in the desert, 30 miles for anything resembling civilization, a long way from any help should I need it, and I opted for personal safety, over the risks of possible injury and becoming the subject of a search myself. Unlike Jim who was incidentally in excellent physical condition, I am not in that great a shape anymore.
About 4 weeks ago, Justin Willess gained access to the radar analysis and trajectory data produced by an NTSB analyst. After examining that data and putting it together with our own thoughts and information, we reached the conclusion that we had been correct all along concerning the validity of the southern radar hits.
Justin provided his mother with the new NTSB radar data, and our analysis, and the information was sent to Governor Richards. Virtually the moment he received her letter he picked up the phone and ordered the search. His office has remained in contact with her from that moment to this, assisting the family with every detail they may require.
The CAP informed me that they flew only two mission along Jim's projected flight path. When I sought particulars, they were clear that they had NOT flown any north to south or south to north patterns below the ridge lines in the Brokeoff mountains, where the plane was found. Larry will verify for you that flying east/west lines you cannot get low enough to see an RV6 in the bottom of a valley. Other than that all the search efforts were focused in Texas.
All of my efforts were focused in NM along the known and projected flight path for a direct route to Midland TX.
Based on some of the comments I have read here I felt it was important to bring this information onto the discussion. The real hero in this is of course Governor Richardson and the NM state police. This however does not in any way diminish the efforts and contributions of the CAP and other SAR teams that conducted search operations. Jim's family is very grateful to all who contributed.
I did see one comment that demands a response. Jim maintained the same medical certification he had as a commercial airline pilot. At this time there is no information that would bring his health into play a a factors in this incident. While that may change, idle speculation on this point serves no positive purpose. The NTSB, and the FAA have stated that they will run an investigation and at this time there is no reason to believe that they will not determine the cause.
As additional information comes available, it will probably be posted on the family sponsored website, but I would be willing to post here as well as there seems to be much interest among this group.
Again, on behalf of the members of USUA Flying Club 1, and Jim Willess's family, thank all of you for your support.
Phil Williams
Director of Membership
USUA Flying Club 1
