By Joanne Gonnerman
For the Salisbury Post
When Barry Hulon Hyde was 12, he fell in love.
He was working for Ferrell James, a pilot for U.S. Airways and the husband of a second cousin, and fell in love with aviation ó even if that wasn’t what he was doing. James owned rental property and paid Hyde to help him remodel and renovate the properties. Hyde was around airplanes all the time and took his first ride with James’ son, Ferrell James Jr., and discovered his passion ó aviation.
In 1991, at the age of 19, Hyde began taking flying lessons. In 1992, he earned his private pilot’s license and was on his way to securing a lifelong dream of becoming a commercial pilot. In 1994, he graduated from Rowan-Cabarrus Community College with an associate degree in business administration and a certificate in accounting and bought his first rental property.
In 1995, he sold his rental property to have money for tuition and enrolled in flight school at American Flyers in Addison, Texas. He completed flight school in January 1996, just a few weeks shy of his 24th birthday. In October of that year, he was hired as a flight instructor for Lancaster Aviation at Concord Regional Airport. His career in aviation had begun.
But an aviation accident interrupted that career on June 1, 1998.
Hyde had agreed to ride as a safety pilot for Robert E. Anderson, a licensed pilot who was working on getting his instrument ratings current.
The responsibility of a safety pilot is to look out the windows while the main pilot flies the aircraft by instruments. Anderson had rented a twin-engine Comanche from the flight school to fly to his home in West Virginia. The safety pilot was 26-year-old Hyde.
According to Hyde, approximately 27 minutes after takeoff, the right fuel tank ran dry and the right engine stopped. Ten minutes later, the left main fuel tank also ran dry and the left engine stopped. Hyde recalls his last words to air traffic control personnel: “Niner-four Yankee is going in.”
Niner-four Yankee was the identification number of the airplane ó N7794Y.
The Comanche crashed near Floyd, Va., 92 miles from Concord and 58 miles from Lewisburg County, W.Va.
Many articles about Hyde have been published since that crash, about his broken facial bones and reconstructive surgeries, the loss of taste and smell, physical and cognitive rehabilitation and blindness. They retell his tragedy, but Hyde has had much triumph since then.
Hyde has achieved notoriety in many areas since tragedy stole his ability to pilot an aircraft.
Since the accident, Hyde has become the Federal Aviation Administration’s first and only blind, certified advanced ground instructor and instrument ground instructor. He has earned a bachelor of arts degree in history from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and this past May, graduated with a 4.0 grade point average from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., the largest flight school in the world.
Hyde earned his master of science in aeronautics with specializations in aviation safety and aviation operations. Hyde is the first blind graduate in the school’s 82-year history. He is working on his doctoral degree online from Northcentral University in Prescott, Ariz., in business administration with aeronautical specializations in aviation safety and aviation operations.
In October, Hyde spoke in Washington, D.C., to members of the Air Traffic Control Association, and Jan. 4-9, he will attend the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics convention in Reno, Nev., to present his graduate research project titled “An Examination of the Importance of Properly Executed Preflight Checklists to Ensure Flight Safety.”
“I love aviation,” Hyde said in a recent interview. “I want to be a part of it some way, shape or form.”
Hyde said he hopes he will be able to prevent another accident like his.
“Through my research and through my personal experience, I can share with other pilots what I’ve lived through and perhaps help them avoid disaster,” he said.
“Pilot error, or pilot negligence, both so closely related, are avoidable with the proper checklists. It is my belief that my personal experience, along with thorough research, can provide pilots with information and data that might prevent them from experiencing what I’ve lived through.”
Why has Barry succeeded when others faced with life-altering circumstances stop pursuing their passion? Perhaps it is his positive attitude, his determination or his resourcefulness, as attested to by Dr. Marvin Smith, Hyde’s adviser and professor of applied aviation sciences at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Perhaps it is his calling, something so innate it happens naturally. More than likely, Hyde’s success is simply because he loves aviation.
Of his blindness, Hyde said, “It’s part of my life. I faced it and moved on.”