Holiday saves kids from plane crash

[htonl]

Holiday saves kids from plane crash:

Four people were critically injured after a plane crashed into a school fence in Merebank near Durban International Airport on Thursday, KwaZulu-Natal emergency services said.

[...]

Only the four people appeared to have been on board at the time of the crash, about three kilometres from the airport, and nobody from the school was injured as it had been closed due to the public holiday.

Evidently it was a positioning flight moving the plane from one airport to another, which is why there were no passengers on board.

How long do you imagine it'll be before we start seeing glurge about this?

ETA: some interesting pictures here.

[Wild Card]

You heard it here first, children: missing school saves lives.

[BoKu]

Where only decades before, dozens of children had played...

[Artemis]

Originally Posted by htonl

How long do you imagine it'll be before we start seeing glurge about this?

Because they were in Church when it happened!

[purpleiguana]

Oh no... now Death will come looking for them, and there will be yet another Final Destination sequel!

[Singing in the Drizzle]

The question people always forget to ask with thing like this is, would the pilot had did something different if they knew there were the kids playing out side.

As one small airplane pilot after a crash was asked or radioed back to the control tower. I was many years ago and do not remember exactly what or how it was said. The pilot was losing power and was looking to make an emergency landing and could not make it back to the airport. He was going to try landing in the school playground when he saw kids playing. So he aborted the landing and instead crashed it into a near by lake.

[kanazawa]

Originally Posted by Singing in the Drizzle

He was going to try landing in the school playground when he saw kids playing. So he aborted the landing and instead crashed it into a near by lake.

Lake or not, I think I'd still try to land it (ditch) in the lake rather than crash it..

[kanazawa]

This is close enough:

" While in cruise flight, at 6,500 feet above mean sea level, the "engine sounded like it was out of fuel" and the "propeller just stopped." He immediately began performing his emergency checklist which included switching the fuel tanks; however, the engine did not respond. He also utilized his global positioning system to locate the nearest airport, however the nearest airport was about 12 miles away which, at the altitude he was at, he felt was too far away. He saw a multi-lane road, due to the hour of the day he felt that the road was too heavily traveled and would "create a hazard by landing there." He then saw an open field and proceeded to attempt to land in it. As he approached the open field he realized it was a park with a playground. He then attempted to locate another place to land; however, there was no other location suitable. The airplane's altitude was not sufficient enough to glide to the open field and the airplane "settled into the trees." The airplane came to rest in the tops of the trees, approximately 25 feet above ground level, and the pilot exited the airplane and descended down the tree. The airplane was noticed the following day, by a passer-by, still in the tree."

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?...09LA296&akey=1