Dale Earnhardt Jr. is speaking publicly about his plane crash in East Tennessee for the first time.
Talking with reporters before the Daytona 500 on Sunday, Earnhardt opened up about his fears of flying since his crash back on Aug. 15.
Earnhardt Jr.’s Cesna 680a crashed and burst into flames in Elizabethton, Tenn. Earnhardt Jr., his wife, child and the pilot made it out alive.
With the tragic news of sports legend Kobe Bryant’s death and Earnhardt Jr.'s crash, reporter asked Earhardt if he’s changed his view on flying.
For the first time, Earnhardt Jr. opened up about it being hard for him to get back into a plane.
“Now that you know realities and dangers it will never be the same again,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It’s something that you’ll never be able to forget...it’ll never block out no matter how many flights you take.”
Earnhardt Jr. said on the day of his plane crash, he hadn’t looked into the specifics of the crash, but that has all changed now.
“Before I flew I basically didn’t inquire about the weather or any details, any technical information about the length of the roadway we’re flying into or I didn’t know the performance of my own plane as far as it’s ability to land and take off and what kind of airstrips that it could or that, couldn’t do that,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “There’s a lot of thing that I just didn’t even think about and I just left it up to the guys that were flying the plane that if they were comfortable, I was comfortable.”
According to the Federal Aviation Administration’s initial report, Earnhardt Jr.’s plane had a hard landing, bounced, went off the runway and caught on fire.
Dramatic video taken from a nearby road showed the billowing smoke as flames consumed the aircraft– leaving nothing but scraps of metal.
“I think that for me to be able to get back in there and go and do and travel like I want, the only way I could do it really was to get into the details,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I’m not flying the plane, I’m not a pilot, but I have as much control as I possibly can about the decisions we’re making about flying the plane.”
Earnhardt Jr. said he believes in his pilots, who he’s known for two decades. Now, he’s trying to learn everything he can about flying.
“For somebody like me who’s never flown a plane, some of this stuff is way over my head, but I’m diving in there in the deep end and trying to learn anything I can about the plane’s ability and the decisions they make and why they make them,’ Earnhardt Jr. said. “It’s been extremely informational as you can imagine, I’ve learned so much in such a short period of time ..in getting more confidence in what we’re doing and that we are safe and that we are going to be safe.”
No matter what happens, Earnhardt Jr. says he doesn’t want to quit getting in an airplane.
“I need to get over that fear and work hard to do it,” Earnhardt Jr. said.
Now every single time Earnhardt Jr. takes off, he knows what the crew is doing and why they’re doing it.
“Now I’m a bit more involved in the trips we take and what we do and not do when it comes to weather and what airports we’re flying in and out of,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I’m overly, extremely overly safe on some of those decisions to the point where it might be annoying to my pilots they'd never admit that.”
Earnhardt Jr. said he needs to figure things out on his own, but it’s worked pretty good so far.