Creative solution allows flight instructor back into the cockpit
By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor 217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu
A flight instructor at the Institute of Aviation who was grounded by serious injuries he sustained in a traffic accident a few years ago recently was able to pilot a plane again, thanks to his own determination and the support of his colleagues, including an innovative maintenance foreman. John Suppok, an associate aviation education specialist, was critically injured on Oct. 9, 2000, when his motorcycle collided with a semi-truck trailer on Staley Road just west of Champaign. Although doctors initially had hoped to save both of Suppok’s legs, the severity of his injuries and a resulting bone infection made it necessary for them to amputate his left leg below the knee a few weeks after the accident, then operate again a short time later and amputate above the knee. They were able to save his right leg but had to fuse the knee, leaving him unable to bend it. Suppok also sustained a broken neck and collarbone, which necessitated fusing the vertebrae in his neck and implanting titanium plates on each side. While the life-changing magnitude of Suppok’s injuries might have demoralized some, Suppok was determined to resume his life right where he’d left off, especially his duties as a flight instructor. “From the get-go, as soon as I became aware of the situation in the hospital, it was ‘When could I get back to teaching?’ ” Suppok said. “I wanted to do students’ oral exams from the hospital, but Rick Weinberg (the institute’s chief pilot at the time), said, ‘No, you can’t do that.’ And I said, ‘Why not? Send ’em down.’ ” Suppok said he learned to fly in 1964, when he was an ROTC student at West Virginia University; he later was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, a commercial helicopter pilot in Alaska for three years and flew with the Army National Guard for another 18 years before joining the UI’s staff in 1999. While Suppok was recuperating in the spring of 2001, he was a guest lecturer a few times for the instructor who had taken over his ground-school classes at the institute. By that summer, Suppok was teaching ground school and simulator training part time, but he was determined to teach in the cockpit again, too. Through physical therapy and rehabilitation he had learned new ways to do things, such as driving a car using hand controls. One day in September 2001, he and his physical therapist decided to see if Suppok could get himself into the cockpit of one of the Piper Archer PA28181 airplanes that the institute uses for instruction. “Everybody else just puts one foot up on the wing and raises themselves up and climbs in,” Suppok said. “We worked; it was extremely difficult to get into that airplane – to step up onto the wing and literally just pull myself into it. I wasn’t strong enough at the time. But we worked at it, and I got in and said, ‘Yes, this will work.’ ” Suppok’s colleagues at the institute were so impressed by his determination to fly again that they resolved to help him and began looking for adaptive devices that would enable Suppok to operate the planes’ rudder controls with his hands rather than his feet. Jay Bongiorno, aviation maintenance foreman at the institute, and Suppok traveled to Iowa together to inspect a device being used by other pilots that they hoped would work in the institute’s planes. While they decided against that device because it required permanent installation, Bongiorno said the time he spent with Suppok inspired him to keep looking for solutions. “I never really knew John too well before his accident,” Bongiorno said. “I had just started working here then. But when I flew out to Iowa with him, I could tell he just had a really great desire to fly. I have a pilot’s license too, and I do enjoy flying; however, I can take it or leave it. But you can tell it’s just a passion of his, so it made me want to get something together for him to get him back up there.” Bongiorno subsequently developed a bar that attaches to the rudder pedal horizontal support bar on the cockpit floor and latches into place. By moving the bar up or down, Suppok can control the rudder and steer the plane. The device can be installed or removed within a matter of minutes so other pilots can use the same plane. “It’s very different because I’ve been flying since 1964, and I’m conditioned that if the airplane tips or rocks to use the right foot pedal and roll the wings back down,” Suppok said. “When that happens, my toes are working like crazy – even the ones that don’t exist – and since I can’t reach the pedals, they’re not doing anything. I have to condition myself to use my hand instead.” Developing the device only took about two weeks, Bongiorno said. The toughest challenge was getting it certified by the Federal Aviation Administration – a process that had to be successfully completed before Suppok could fly with it. It took about 18 months from start to finish. The FAA rendered approval on Oct. 7, and on Oct. 26, Suppok flew again for the first time since his accident, accompanied by Sybil Phillips, chief pilot and head of the professional pilot division at the institute. “It was fantastic to get back up in the air and see all the changes that have occurred in the city in four years. The exhilaration of being up there was just indescribable. I didn’t need an airplane to fly,” Suppok said about the flight. Currently, Suppok is restricted to student-pilot privileges and must be accompanied by an instructor; Phillips has agreed to serve as Suppok’s instructor as he learns how to fly again. The paperwork process of getting FAA approval for the device was daunting at times, Suppok said, but now that the device has been approved, he aims to regain his pilot’s certificate before the end of the semester. “The support that I’ve gotten here, from the time I was in the hospital, has been absolutely outstanding. The people at the institute have been closer than family and have just been so encouraging. The other day when we went out to make that flight, the whole staff was outside lined up in front of the building, and as we taxied past, I told Sybil, ‘All you guys have done is make it absolutely impossible for me to retire.’ ” the 63-year-old Suppok said. “It was a real team effort,” said Phillips, who also accompanied an FAA inspector on a flight to test the device during the approval process. “The staff and students at the institute have been truly inspired by John’s determination, positive outlook and dedication. I don’t think there was ever a doubt in anyone’s mind that we were going to do this. It’s a rare opportunity we have to show our students what determination and commitment to people will do for you.”
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