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A pilot and his passenger survived after their Cessna 177B ran out of fuel and crash landed in an apartment’s living room. The kicker? According to Delia Gonçalves and Simon Landau of WUSA9, the residents “didn’t see any damage to the house until they opened their bedroom doors and saw a plane inside their living room” and the kids even slept through the incident.”
The plane departed Philadelphia for Manassas Regional Airport and crashed just shy of its target. The Washington Post reports the plane crash was related to electrical problems shorting out the engine, but also reports the pilots called low-fuel into air traffic control.
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This is the same model plane involved in last year’s deadly plane crash in Wayne County, PA. The engine stalled during landing and the plane landed nose first.
Crash investigations tend to take 12-18 months to complete, so it is unlikely we’ll know whether the engine issues are related in these two cases (the first crash happened just over 12 months ago).
But last year’s crash occurred with 50 gallons of fuel in the tank, so low-fuel was definitely not related.
Despite reading about these accidents, I still want to learn how to fly a plane. Call me crazy. My family all scuba dives, and I find the idea of doing that terrifying. (Maybe I can get my dad to guest blog with some of his underwater photography and a story about his encounter with a very large, hungry eel).
He dealt with that situation well, but me? When I was snorkeling, a stingray landed on my foot. I screamed (of course), which is not a good idea when your face is underwater. Long story short, I started drowning and had to be rescued.
So I threw this out on twitter and I’ll ask you–would you feel safer scuba diving or flying a plane?
I was a flight instructor for 3-years teaching in piston aircraft, including the Cessna 177 mentioned. It’s an incredibly rewarding hobby, pastime, and profession. Now’s a great time to start, because learning to fly is not getting any cheaper! I always felt safer hopping into a plane with an inexperienced student than I did driving to the airport.
By the way, this event has an uncanny connection to the movie “The World According to Garp.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBSAeqdcZAM
Wow, the scene even looks like the picture! Crazy! Thanks for sharing that, I’d never seen it
You know I’m all kinds of crazy; I love scuba diving, flying, AND skydiving. =)
There’s a common poster around airports, with the caption, “Aviation is not inherently dangerous, but to an even greater extent than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity, or neglect.”
It’s like the plot of Donnie Darko
Then I’m staying away from Herdon for the next few weeks just to make sure…
I still want to learn how to fly a plane as well! And maybe, just maybe, one day own my own plane.