Alaska 261 tragedy is too close to home for writer.

By JOHN MARSHALL / Seattle Post Intelligencer Reporter

 Saturday, February 5, 2000

There he was on television again in the aftermath of an airplane crash John J. Nance of Tacoma, calm, authoritative, cautionary, a voice from the cockpit trying to make sense of what might have happened and why. But this week, it was all different for the pilot who serves as aviation editor and analyst for ABC News. This week, the plane that went down was from Alaska Airlines where Nance himself has long flown (although he is on leave for three years).

"This crash has been terrifying for me in many respects," Nance conceded Thursday from Chicago. "First, I would love to just hide and not do analysis of it. But my ABC position dictates that I have to be there. Secondly, I have always prided myself on not identifying myself as an Alaska pilot, because I didn't think it was appropriate I always needed to be a million miles from a particular carrier when I'm on the air commenting on what a pilot may have done.

"So with Alaska 261, suddenly my neutrality was gone and I was biased as hell and that made this week's tragedy a special horror. I had to break my silence immediately about my Alaska connection, telling viewers on every show that I am not a neutral party in this crash and everything I say should be taken with that in mind."

The Alaska crash also occurred during what should have been a time of celebration for the 53 year old pilot. For it came within days of publication of his latest novel, which should have been prompting thoughts of another run on the best seller lists, after "PANDORA'S CLOCK," "MEDUSA'S CHILD" and "The Last Hostage."

Suddenly, Nance's media interviews for "BLACKOUT" (G.P. Putnam, 435 pages, $23.95) - another gut pounding airborne thriller were interrupted by constant calls from ABC and other media seeking comments on the latest developments in the Alaska 261 crash. The swamped Nance obliged as best he could, even if only ABC was paying for his comments.

"The notoriety certainly never hurt my books," Nance said, "but I've always felt, rightly or wrongly, that I was accomplishing something by offering my observations." John J. Nance, Alaska Airlines pilot/analyst/writer, found the Flight 261 tragedy "a special horror."

"BLACKOUT" itself has a higher purpose, even if it is such a diverting entertainment that it turns page turning into an aerobic workout. The plot centers on the use of anti?personnel lasers to blind pilots and send airliners plummeting from the skies. These portable lasers seem to have fallen into the hands of terrorists in Nance's novel, causing two crashes. Or they may have fallen into the hands of renegade forces within the U.S. government, as FBI agent Katherine Bronsky begins to suspect.

This plot might seem to have sprung from "The X Files" rather than a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and veteran of both the Vietnam and Gulf wars, as Nance is. He is that adamant about the laser threat. As he emphasized, "I have been very, very interested and terrified that one of these days we have to face the reality of anti personnel lasers. I want to keep ahead of the game, since one of tomorrow's headlines is likely to be about an air crew severely hurt by a laser. I think that if they are not outlawed or severely controlled then it is only a matter of time until somebody pulls this."

Nance is a driven person who relishes "pushing the envelope" by performing many disparate roles well: Husband and father of three. Pilot. Aviation attorney. Motivational speaker. Best selling author. Analyst. Facts, figures and data flow forth from his brain at a sonic clip: The 31 speeches he gives a year, usually to medical groups. The 62 appearances he had on network shows in the five days following the crash of a USAir plane in Pittsburgh, which left him feeling "as though it came out of my hide" and convinced him to sign a contract with ABC. The extra 60 knots of speed that an experienced captain had ordered as a plane approached Denver after a thunderstorm, extra speed that Nance, engineer on the flight, remains convinced kept the plane from crashing when it encountered wind shear.

"We still hit the ground so hard we thought we had damaged the struts," Nance related, "The passengers filed off that plane without a word; we came off white as ghosts."

Nance may be associated with airplane crashes, but his own career in the cockpit has seen few crises. Besides the Denver wind shear, his greatest challenge came last year in his company plane on a book tour through the South. An electrical fire sent a plume of smoke into the cockpit and the right windshield shattered, causing Nance to cut electrical power and divert to the nearest airfield.

"I had to declare an emergency for the first time in an airplane," he recalled. "We were able to land in 4 1/2 minutes in Anderson, S.C., and it turned out that some idiot had failed to tighten a power connection during maintenance, causing the fire. It nearly killed us. If I didn't have a lot of pilot time, I could have blown my approach because of nerves. That's what happens to many private pilots."

The rare crisis that Nance has faced in the cockpit, despite 13,000 hours of commercial and military flight, may be one of the reasons why he is the voice of caution or even optimism in the aftermath of a crash. In fact, Nance is sometimes chided by Charles Gibson of "Good Morning America" for so frequently insisting "how good aviation is, how safe it is."

Nance is willing to plead guilty (somewhat) as charged: "It's not that I think pilots are god and aviation is perfect. But we have built a very good system. I do not want to be a commercial monger for the airlines, but I do believe this is an industry in which the public can have faith. The level of safety and certainty is incredibly high, despite all the galvanized concern when someone goes down."

It has been 15 years since Nance first started making media appearances for his first book on Braniff Airlines, where he had been a pilot. There have been 10 books and probably 2,000 media appearances since.

Now, Nance has achieved prominence as both a best selling author and aviation analyst ("expert" is a description he despises). People finally are recognizing that the guy who writes the thrillers is the same guy who appears on television.

Surprisingly, being a writer means the most to Nance, more than any of his other roles. As he stressed, "Writing has always been a great fascination of mine because you can be someone who leaves behind books and they will outlive you. Tens of thousands of people can fly airplanes as well as I can, but there is unique creativity involved in writing a book."

PI books reporter John Marshall can be reached at 206.448.8170 or johnmarshall@seattle.pi.com

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