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View Full Version : Fate, irony, or justice?



pchall
03-16-10, 07:23 PM
A beach, a jogger, a failing plane, and death
DORIE TURNER
From Associated Press
March 16, 2010 9:07 PM EDT

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Robert Gary Jones was a pharmaceutical salesman on a business trip, looking forward to getting home to celebrate his daughter's third birthday. He was enjoying a moment to himself on this resort island, jogging on the beach and listening to his iPod. Officials say the Woodstock, Ga., man neither saw nor heard what struck him from behind Monday evening: A single-engine plane making an emergency landing.

The Lancair IV-P aircraft, which can be built from a kit, had lost its propeller and was "basically gliding" as it hit and instantly killed Jones, said Ed Allen, the coroner for Beaufort County on the South Carolina coast.

"There's no noise," said aviation expert Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the National Transportation Safety Board. "So the jogger, with his ear buds in, and the plane without an engine, you're basically a stealth aircraft. Who would expect to look up?"

This guy was probably the self-absorbed Prius driver we all blow by on the morning commute who is smuggly doing 55 in the right lane with his ears full of RF emitting brain cancer causing gear.

link (http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20100316/c5fd5cbd-e096-43de-9493-9f12d7900e08)

opinionated ow
03-16-10, 07:34 PM
I HATE Lancairs. A truly awful aeroplane design. One of those bloody contraptions killed my initial instructor when he had engine failure after take-off. Why would you make the stall speed, best rate of climb AND best glide all so bloody close?

(And it's not like he was inexperienced...a British Army gulf war veteran who had been instructing since and was also a licensed aircraft maintenance engineer).

cameraman
03-16-10, 11:02 PM
This guy was probably the self-absorbed Prius driver we all blow by on the morning commute who is smuggly doing 55 in the right lane with his ears full of RF emitting brain cancer causing gear.

What's with the hate? The guy was jogging on the beach and he gets run down by a bouncing, zero power plane. He didn't do a single damn thing wrong.

Methanolandbrats
03-16-10, 11:38 PM
What's with the hate? The guy was jogging on the beach and he gets run down by a bouncing, zero power plane. He didn't do a single damn thing wrong.

Ya, no ****. Some poor guy is jogging and can't wait to see his daughter and he gets hit by some retarded Orville and Wilbur wannabee. :mad:

dando
03-17-10, 09:13 AM
Yeah, I don't get the hate on this tragedy...especially since I have a 3 yo daughter...and my mom and step-dad live in HHI. :saywhat: :(

-Kevin

KLang
03-17-10, 10:13 AM
Serious iPod hater?

Elmo T
03-17-10, 11:22 AM
Even with oil smeared on the windshield, Schiavo says the pilot should have been able to see through a small window on the side of the plane and possibly yell out to anyone below. Still, there may have been little time to try to avoid hitting the jogger, she said.

:rolleyes: