Remembering Mac

It is hard to think of an Australian pilot and writer who has made a bigger contribution to aviation safety than Mac. The impact of spreading aviation safety learnings via his nine books and countless magazine articles is immeasurable, but wide-ranging.

“We will probably never see an aviation safety writer as good as Macarthur Job again. I know he was responsible for my 47 years of safe flying,” posted one pilot on our Australian Aviation website story about Mac’s passing.

Mac was a contributor to Australian Aviation over a number of years, but he was perhaps best known as the author of the world-renowned Air Crash and Air Disaster book series (published between 1991 and 2001). A measure of the regard they were held in, the Air Disaster books came to be used by a number of Australian and international airlines as pilot training texts.

But he wrote in a manner that not just pilots could understand, but the layperson as well. He was a beautiful writer, able to capture the pace, decision-making processes and sequence of events as accidents unfolded to truly give an appreciation of how they occurred.

This short passage from Air Disaster Volume 1’s account of what remains the world’s worst aviation disaster, the March 1977 collision of KLM and Pan Am 747s on Tenerife airport’s runway that killed 583 people, is worth reproducing as that chapter is a seminal example of his work: Fatefully, Pan Am’s protesting transmission conflicted with the controller’s instruction to KLM. Instead of the words “standby for takeoff . . . I will call you,” all the KLM crew heard after the controller’s first “OK” was a squeal resulting from the two simultaneous transmissions on the same frequency.

The exchange that followed between the Tower and the Pan Am 747 was however audible on the KLM flightdeck. But by this time the KLM 747 was 20 seconds into its takeoff run. With Captain van Zanten and First Officer Meurs both concentrating fully on the takeoff itself, only Flight Engineer Schreuder took in the possible significance of the two transmissions. “Did he not clear the runway then?” he asked the pilots.

The captain, giving all his attention to the takeoff, did not take in the engineer’s question either.

“What did you say?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Did he not clear the runway – that Pan American?” Schreuder repeated.

“Yes, he did,” both pilots answered emphatically.

The KLM takeoff continued. . .

Mac’s ability to analyse and dissect accidents in language that pilots understand was a great gift.

The key to Mac’s success as an aviation writer was his own invaluable experience as a commercial pilot, first with the Royal Flying Doctor Service in outback South Australia (during which time he would meet Esma, who was an RFDS pharmacist), and then for a charter and aerial work operator in southern NSW.

In 1964 he joined the Air Safety Investigation Branch of the then Department of Civil Aviation, going on to edit the Department’s Aviation Safety Digest publication, or the ‘Crash Comic’, as it was better known, for 14 years. Read by over 30,000 pilots, aircraft owners, operators and industry professionals each issue, in 1972 Aviation Safety Digest would be awarded the Flight Safety Foundation’s prestigious ‘Publication of the Year’ award.

In the late 1970s Mac joined Australian aviation industry magazine Aircraft (now Aviation Business), going on to serve as managing editor for four years. Then after time as a director with the Missionary Aviation Fellowship, in 1988 Mac established himself as an independent aviation writer and aviation safety analyst. In the following years he would write regularly for Australian Aviation as he worked on his Air Crash and Air Disaster books.

I was a pretty junior member of the Australian Aviation staff in those days, but count myself as privileged to have been able to work with Mac in a small way during what were my own formative years as an aviation writer. As with so many others he left a lasting impression on me, both for the professional standards he set and for how he conducted himself as a person – thoughtful, considerate, quick to praise and generous with his time.

After his time working with Australian Aviation Mac would go on to write a further two aviation books and was a regular contributor to CASA’s Flight Safety Australia plus Aero Australia magazine.

In 2003 he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for “services to the promotion of aviation safety”. Other awards included a ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ from the National Aviation Press Club (NAPC) in 2007, and in 1997 both the Aviation Safety Foundation of Australia’s ‘Aviation Safety Award‘ for “aviation safety excellence” in the ground support category and AOPA’s ‘Bill Adams Trophy’ for “the most outstanding contribution to aviation by an AOPA member”.

Mac’s NAPC award citation highlighted: “one of the quiet achievers in journalism and a person who has dedicated his considerable writing and flying skills to furthering the cause of air safety”. It also noted that: “Mac’s ability to analyse and dissect accidents in language that pilots understand is a great gift. ” It was a great gift that has left a great legacy.