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.

FMI: www.erau.edu, www.prescottairfair.com