Mass. Cops Seek Answers In Death Of Elderly Aviator

Some guys just are not destined to die in an airplane. We remember Marine fighter pilot Marion Carl, who retired as a general only to lose his life in his eighties to a no-account criminal who burst into his home. A similar sad fate may have befallen southern Massachusetts aviator David Frawley (pictured, right), whose death on December 16th at age 85 was initially ruled an accidental fall.

But... there is a chnace that it might not have been. State Police are reinvestigating Frawley's death in his Mattapoisett home, and focusing on a man that local cops say stole from him in life. A few days before his death, Frawley called police to complain that money had been stolen from his checking account.

Mattapoisett is a small, generally well-to-do but not rich, coastal community in Plymouth County. A suspicious death here is an immeasurably rare event.

Suspicion soon zeroed in on Michael Picewick (pronounced "Pickwick"), 31, also of Mattapoisett. Picewick 9below, right) had made friends with Frawley and done odd jobs for him, for which the elderly main paid him nominal sums. But prosecutors say that Picewick may have changed the numbers on Frawley's checks, looting $9,590 from the old man's accounts. (Mattapoisett Police Chief Mary Lyons told CBS 4 TV that "it appears that some checks were stolen from [Frawley's] checkbook and were fraudulently filled out and cashed at the bank").

Some of the checks were reported stolen by Frawley on Dec. 13. Others turned up in an examination of his accounts by Robert Moore, Frawley's friend and lawyer, and the executor of his estate. Moore plays a pivotal role in the case, as Picewick -- whom he describes as "that low-life" -- is his son-in-law, and once served with him in the Mattapoisett police.

The checks were deposited in Picewick's wife's -- Moore's stepdaughter's -- account.

Picewick was at Frawley's house the night before he was found dead, according to police.

Picewick was released on $2,500 bail -- prosecutors had asked for several times more, but it wouldn't be Massachusetts if the judge didn't lean the other way.

Local television station WBZ called David Frawley a "world-renowned" aviator, which might be overstating the case a little, but Frawley was well-known among Massachusetts aviators (who seem to be a long-lived lot; Crocker Snow and John Nelson are examples from my own North Shore area). The renown that Frawley had probably came less from any notoriety and more from his long tenure, wide experience, and love of flying.

Frawley used to say that he was nearest to God when he was aloft, a sentiment shared by many of us who share his passion for flight. "He lived and breathed for flying. It was the love of his life." family friend Kathy Moore -- the wife of Richard Moore -- told the New Bedford (MA) Standard-Times. "He'd say, 'I talk to God every day up there.'"

"Flying was the love of his life. It's what he was born to do," his nephew, Jim Buckley of Delaware, told the same paper. "He let me do the controls. For me, it was a scary experience. I wasn't cut out to be a pilot, but that's what he was born to do. Definitely. From the time he was born, he loved it; he loved every aspect of it -- the flying itself, the teaching, refurbishing old airplanes, the history of flight. It was the love of his life."

Frawley had just renewed his second class medical this month, despite a joint replacement that left him walking with canes at the time of his death. (When he was found dead at the bottom of the stairs in his home, it was easy to assume he had had an accidental fall).

He had an enviable collection of FAA ratings, including ATP privileges in single- and multi-engine land and seaplanes. (The multi-sea rating is quite uncommon). He also had commercial privileges in helicopters. He was type rated in a wide variety of aircraft, ranging from the Cessna Citation and Hawker HS-125 bizjets to many warbirds, including: Boeing B-17, Consolidated LB30 (the Confederate Air Force's early B-24 variant), North American B-25, Douglas B-26 (A-26), DC-3/C-47, Lockheed 18, and Grumman TBM Avenger. He was also typed in the Consolidated PBY-5 and Grumman Albatross large seaplanes.

Remarkably, all of those type ratings were full ratings without restrictions, except for the Grumman Albatross rating, which was restricted to VFR flight only. (Some pilots seeking vintage warbird type ratings don't intend to fly those types in IMC, and so take an abbreviated VFR-only checkride for VFR-only privileges).

Frawley was also a Designated Examiner, mostly giving type rating rides in recent days, in the Citation or the warbirds. He also owned and flew a restored Waco UPF-7, N29923, a 1940 biplane with a 220-HP Continental R-670 engine, although the registration on this plane was transferred to a Concord, Mass. holding corporation this spring.

In a life full of unusual aviation achievements, one of the most unusual may have been Frawley's test-pilot duties on the Sznycer ("Schnitzer") BS-12 helicopters, which were designed by Bernard Sznycer and developed in New Bedford near his home from 1956 to 1960. Frawley did the initial test flight on this type, which was one of the first twin-engine (Lycoming O-540 or Franklin 6) helicopters, and one of the first flying-crane types that could carry a utility pod under the boom, like the later Sikorsky S-64 or Kamov Ka-26 series. (He also invested in the company, which went paws up). Today, it's so obscure that we found the picture on a website in Estonia before we found a New Bedford FBO's site that had some pictures of the craft's test phase.

Frawley, an instructor during World War II, was a current CFII and MEI and considered a go-to guy on the operation of radial-engined vintage aircraft. Like many long-lived New Englanders, he was lean and angular of frame; and he is remembered by those who knew him as a man who was friendly to almost all, including his neighbors and his fellow flyers, but not one to suffer fools gladly. He was divorced and had no children, but was proud of the pilots he trained -- over 3,000 of them in sixty-plus years of active instructing, or almost 1% of the total pilot population (discounting student pilots). He trained his first student in 1941.

One statistic of which Frawley was justifiably proud, was that in over sixty years of flying he had never had an accident.

Kathy Moore said that Frawley laughed at the idea of retiring. "He had this quote when people asked him about retiring. He'd say, 'Why retire from something you love?'" He was a member of the Aero Club of New England (www.acone.org), the continent's oldest (and some say, most prestigious) aero club, which actually predates the Wright Brothers' powered flight.

Was he too trusting of a young neighbor? Police and crime-lab technicians are working this holiday trying to answer that question.

Mike Picewick may be in deep trouble now, but he was once on the other side of the law. During 2002, he was a Mattapoisett police officer. He was fired from the Mattapoisett force for reasons that have not become clear. There are several Picewick families long established on Boston's South Shore and on Cape Cod.

"There may be a logical explanation for some of these things," Picewick's lawyer, John Strazulla, told the local paper; but Mr Strazulla did not suggest any logical explanation at this time.

A search of FAA airmen data for Michael Picewick yielded negative results.

A search of FAA airmen data for David Edward Frawley will show all the paperwork, as if it had a zombie life of its own, but the soul behind the ratings has moved on.

FMI: www.mattapoisett.net, www.acone.org