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I remember years ago flying some folks to Jefferson County Airport (Now called Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport) at Broomfield, Colorado. Weather conditions were VMC on a beautiful day. I was on final approach and was congratulating myself for handling ATC communications and instructions very well. Yeah, I had this flying thing down pat. However, and it is always the case when one thinks they have things totally under control, I forgot one little detail. Density altitude. I flared and felt so good about my ability. About 3-4 feet above the runway (wheels to ground) the aircraft stopped flying and dropped with a resounding thud scaring my passengers and snapping me out of my self congratulatory mode. It was a lesson well learned by a novice pilot and a lesson in humility that stuck with me all these years. Thankfully it wasn’t a major incident which it could have easily been. Thanks for this article. I enjoyed your analysis.

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It wasn’t the entire cockpit crew of Eastern Airlines Flight 401 which was distracted. If I recall the transcript correctly, the engineer repeatedly called “too low” but was ignored by the captain, who remarked to the co-pilot “What’s the difference between a flight engineer and a duck?” The co-pilot didn’t know, so the captain provided the answer: “a duck can fly, haw haw” (sound of impact). This incident along, with similar ones, formed the basis of a documentary called “the wrong stuff” which was then used in the development of the CRM program used today.

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Impressively smart move by Leonardo. It also seems like a marriage made in heaven. I’ve been following the Marenco/Kopter development. Many were pretty skeptical that a new player could develop a credible rotorcraft - but they have. Bravo to them.