David J. Haase

1940 - 2022

(News story)
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer


David J. Haase, a commercial airline pilot with destinations domestic and international who was a noted expert in air safety on behalf of his union and comrades, died May 6 at StoryPoint Senior Living, Waterville. He was 81.

He had dementia and was in declining health, his nephew Dwight Haase said. A longtime Whitehouse resident, Mr. Haase lived at StoryPoint since it opened in 2019.

He retired in 2000 from Trans World Airlines, for which he'd flown since 1966. As a young man, the prospect of flight held a thrill.

"He said it looked fascinating to him, flying," his nephew said. He studied aviation at Purdue University and, after service in the Navy, went to work for TWA.

He generally drove to Detroit Metropolitan-Wayne County Airport from his Whitehouse home.

"He could live in Whitehouse and get to Detroit and catch any plane to go where he needed to be," his nephew said. That might involve being a pilot aboard a flight leaving Metro Airport or boarding a plane taking him to the airport from which he was to depart.

"When he talked about flying for TWA, it wasn't about the adventure or the thrill," his nephew said. "He was business like."

Mr. Haase received the 1988 Safety Award from the Air Line Pilots' Association. As chairman of the union's airport standards committee and as "Central Air Safety" chairman for TWA pilots, according to the union's site, Mr. Haase "led ALPA activities in ground deicing and runway incursions, resulting in revised national standards."

"He was highly regarded," said Jerry Lawler, a retired TWA captain. "He was a fairly quiet and laidback guy who was very perfectionist. Persnickety I would call him. He flew copilot for me."

TWA was known for its rigorous training, but Mr. Lawler's view based on his experience in the air with Mr. Haase was, "just give him the keys to the plane.

"He was a person who went by the book, which was very important," Mr. Lawler said.

Mr. Haase had been an investigator for his union on an incident in 1979 involving TWA Flight 841, which went into a spiral dive near Saginaw, Mich. The Minneapolis-St. Paul-bound flight recovered and landed at Detroit Metro afterward.

His role had been in analyzing the flight data recorder analysis. He shared his insights several years ago with Emilio Corsetti III, a retired international airline pilot and author who wrote a book about Flight 841, Scapegoat: A Flight Crew's Journey from Heroes to Villains to Redemption.

Mr. Haase's testimony to the National Transportation Safety Board was cited in a 1997 San Francisco Chronicle report on collisions among airliners taxiing on runways at the nation's major airports.

At a 1995 hearing of the safety board, Mr. Haase spoke about the Federal Aviation Administration's rushed attempts after each runway accident to prepare a plan that would assure critics that it was working on airport problems, the newspaper reported.

"That, in my mind," Mr. Haase told the safety board, "is not an active, ongoing program. That is crisis management."

His nephew said: "He had a strong sense of camaraderie with his fellow pilots. He wanted to make sure people got to destinations safely. He was a meticulous person and organized. He was was the right person to deal with those issues."

After he retired, Mr. Haase received a master of business administration degree from the University of Toledo and worked with his brother, Fred, in the business their father founded, the George J. Haase Co.

He was born July 22, 1940, to Adelaide and George Haase, and grew up near UT. He was a 1958 graduate of DeVilbiss High School and a 1964 graduate of Purdue.

He generally supported Republican candidates, but listened open mindedly to other viewpoints, his nephew said: "He was very gentlemanly, very polite and respectful to other people."

He was a member of Epworth United Methodist Church, Ottawa Hills.

He did not marry or have children, his nephew said, and his brother died in 2014.

There are no immediate survivors.

Funeral services will begin at 11 a.m. Monday at Walker Funeral Home, Sylvania Township, where friends will be received after 9 a.m.

Tributes are suggested to Purdue University.