Not Just a Plane Job

Since 1988, Steve Smalley's work has taken him wherever there's been an airplane accident in the central to southern portion of Florida. He's the owner of Air & Sea Recovery, located in Deerfield Beach, and he operates a full-service aircraft recovery business. Utilizing trailers, tow trucks, helicopters, boats, and a slew of other recovery-related equipment, Smalley stands ready for his clients, to go anywhere, anytime, and to do anything to recover their property.

A former aluminum contractor and firefighter, he became involved in this business through a request for assistance from an old family friend, Gene Sheil. It seems that Sheil, an aircraft insurance adjuster, wanted to borrow one of Smalley's trailers for a downed Cessna 152. Prior to having Smalley and a friend haul the aircraft back to Orlando, he needed them to take the damaged plane apart. Following Sheil's instructions, Smalley and his colleague took the plane apart, put it on the trailer, and hauled it back to Orlando. All for a cool $850.

"It was a pretty straightforward, mechanical process," said Smalley, regarding taking the plane apart. "We put it on the trailer, took it back to Orlando, got paid. We said 'Hey man, we could do that all day long--and we'd like to do it all day long!' It was excellent. It was like a little adventure."

That was in 1988. Since then, Air & Sea Recovery has picked up over 250 aircraft, from Georgia to Alabama, from the Florida Keys to the Caribbean. Nowadays, Smalley's work is concentrated in Orlando, Tampa, Key West, and the Bahamas. In his opinion, aircraft recovery is a craft that calls on one's creativity, resourcefulness, and preparedness.

"It's not easy work, but it's rewarding," Smalley related. It's something that you have to devise ways and come up with resources--just like the towing industry. You never know what's going to happen and what the situation is going to require. You just have to be ready."

In fact, he pointed out that much of the work is similar to towing, and utilizes many of the same concepts as incident management. Smalley mentioned that in doing aircraft recovery, the towing professional is part of a chain of command, and must work within the structured system. "There are government agencies, the FAA, the NTSB, local sheriff offices, police agencies, fire and rescue agencies, the coroner's office, EPA--a lot of people involved," he said, adding that it takes "a small amount" of training to work with these people in a recovery situation.

Ninety-nine percent of Smalley's work comes directly from the insurance companies, as almost all airplanes have insurance on them. The insurance company is almost always involved when an airplane is involved in an accident or an incident. When the airplane is totaled, Smalley stated that the airplane itself becomes the client at that point--not its owner. Once the airplane becomes the insurance company's property, it's their responsibility to remove it; that's when they need Air & Sea Recovery.

"The insurance company is the client," Smalley said. "They need a company that can recover their aircraft in a professional manner, take it apart and put it on a trailer, bring it back and store it."

Smalley continued speaking on how, with just a little leg work, a towing company can enter the aviation recovery marketplace.

"I think a lot of these towing outfits that have the resources can identify that insurance customer, do a little research, and tap into that market. It's not that hard at all, or that complicated. I think what the towers need to do is to devote a portion of their resources and their efforts to discovering what these needs are of these insurance companies in this aviation business--and then train your people."

As one could imagine, such work is not without its own set of peculiar stories. Smalley spoke of an instance of an accident that occurred on a Boca Raton golf course. Seems a single-engine airplane lost power and had to make an emergency landing on the fairway. Only one problem: the golfers wouldn't get out of the way. Smalley picks up the story.

"That was a little Piper Warrior", he said. "The kid (flying it) had an engine problem, and the closest place to land was the golf course. It would have been a great place to land except that particular golf course was filled with golfers. He picked a fairway that looked nice, straight, and long. The problem was a lot of the golfers wouldn't get out of his way, and he had to actually fly the airplane around them. He flew into a sand trap and hit a palm tree, which tore the wing off.

Smalley and his crew got there two hours after the accident. They got the sheriff's office to put yellow tape around the area--but that had little effect on the golfers. Said Smalley: "These golfers were still trying to golf over us, trying to play through!"

Regarding the downed plane, the crew had a problem because one wing was on the airplane, and one was off. Ordinarily, according to Smalley, the airplane would be jacked-up by jack points located underneath the wings.

"We couldn't jack the airplane up," Smalley recalled, "because one wing was gone, thus the wing jacks couldn't work. So we used the Air Cushions USA air lift cushions I get from Mark Anderson. It took us no time to lift the airplane up."

Backing the trailer up underneath the back of the airplane, they inflated the bag. Once the trailer was underneath it, it took the weight off the wing, and Smalley's crew just pulled the other wing off. They then slid the airplane on its belly, pulled the nose gear up, slid the airplane right up onto the trailer, and then slid the wings alongside of it. The job took a total of 4 1/2 hours.

Smalley stated that one of the most important things is to contain damage, keeping any further disablement of the plane--especially the wings--minimal.

"A lot of times," he related, "an airplane can land on its belly and damage the props and undercarriage, but the wings sustain no damage. On every part, the wings and all the component parts are very expensive, and you want to make sure that you handle those aircraft without damaging them.

"It's so easy to damage these airplanes; you have to be really careful when you approach them," Smalley continued. "You have to know where to lift them and where not to lift them; where to jack them up and where not to jack them up."

Smalley has 23 airplanes and three hangars, all located in the Ft. Lauderdale area. He will be hosting a seminar at this year's American Towman Exposition in November to those interested in getting into the aviation specialty recovery business.

"I think a professional towing company that wants to get involved in the aviation business has to understand what the nature of the business is," Smalley said. "It's more than just 'nuts and bolts'. In my opinion, an aircraft recovery is a natural progression for the modern-day towman. It's up-to-date with all the high-tech toys.