Fort Good Hope-Horrible news

[godsrcrazy]

an hit by plane in Fort Good Hope

Yellowknife, N.W.T. - A man in his twenties is in serious condition after he was struck by an airplane in Fort Good Hope yesterday evening.

A spokesperson for the RCMP, Sgt. Wayne Norris says the man, a pilot for North Wright Airlines was on the tarmac when the Cessna 207 hit him.

According to a Transport Canada website, the man was taking pictures of the low-flying plane, when its wing clipped him in the head.

Norris says when police arrived, nurses were already helping the man.

"RCMP members responded immediately, and observed medical personnel already on the scene. Nurses were assisting one adult male, who appeared to have suffered serious head injuries."

The man was medevaced to Edmonton, where he remains in serious condition and according to the Transport Canada website, was in a coma.

Norris says four members from the major crimes unit in Yellowknife have travelled to the small community to investigate.



Posted on: May 21, 2010

[nottellin]

WOW!! a wing to the head, I wouldn't think you could survive something like that.
I hope the guy ends up recovering

[The Old Fogducker]

I had the most unpleasant experience of interviewing a pilot who had hit a good friend in the head with a float as he was taking pictures during a buzz-job with a Cesna 180. His buddy was standing up in a boat, camera to his eyes, and the pilot decided to give him a good display for the camera.

He hit him with the keel of the float, and spread his brains all over the boat.

The pilot quit flying for life after that, and not surprisingly went on to have a great many social problems, eventually "drinking himself to death" as the expression goes.

There is a smilar scene in the movie "Catch 22" where an L-4 cuts a guy in half that is standing on a raft.

There is something huge to be learned here folks ... one moment of inattention or mis-judgement, and these little fun sessions can go bad in an instant. You could kill a friend very, very easily with our "toys."

The Old Fogducker

[Seriously?]

Wow Brutal....

Ft. Good Hope area has provided a lot of bad news for North-Wright and Ursus over the years....

[North Shore]

EDITED

..By who and for what? Please PM.

[100_above]

I would imagine that it would have looked a little like this. Hopefully the guy is just as lucky! Prayers are with you dude!
[youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wHyTyh5EWs[/youtube]

[cdnpilot77]

Regardless of how it happened, lets not lost sight of the fact that a young man in the fraternity of pilots is fighting for his life tonight. My thoughts and prayers are with him and the pilot involved.

[into the blue]

I really hope the guy recovers, but it's pretty clear his career is over. As for the cowboy in C207...whether or not he is going to be charged, I'm pretty sure it was his last flight as well. What a foolish way to ruin two lives.

[flyinthebug]

This incident kinda reminds me of a similiar event in Fond Du Lac SK a few yrs back. A small boy was seriously injured by a cowboy pilot who was showing off, and the gear sheared off on the tailgate of the (moving)truck he was buzzing. The gear came through the back window and struck the small boy in the head. I dont know if he ended up survivng or not. I DO know it ended this particular Chief Pilot`s career. Buzz jobs are fun and somehow a right of passage, but use some common sense and dont push the envelope..or this is the result. My thoughts are with the families involved.

[eeffoc]

very sad. hope he has full recovery.

[Nark]

flyinthebug

I couldn't help but think of the same incident.

Although your details are a little off. The little boy was in the plane not the truck. The truck was driven by a dude who wasn't seriously injured. I don't think the CP was charged with anything, or perhaps just fined. It happened on an ice road, I left in June of that year and he was still the CP of the 703 part.

Needless to say my prayers and thoughts go out to this man lying in the hospital.

[JL]

Buzz jobs are fun and somehow a right of passage, but use some common sense and dont push the envelope..or this is the result.

It is sad and frustrating to hear about this event and then read flyinthebug's thought about buzz jobs (no offense intended). The safety culture in commercial flying appears to have a long way to go. I guess the NTSB are justified to look at the overall condition of professionalism in commercial aviation.

[reality check]

Buzz jobs are fun and somehow a right of passage, but use some common sense and dont push the envelope..or this is the result.

It is sad and frustrating to hear about this event and then read flyinthebug's thought about buzz jobs (no offense intended). The safety culture in commercial flying appears to have a long way to go. I guess the NTSB are justified to look at the overall condition of professionalism in commercial aviation.

JL,

You're trying to tell me you've never buzzed anything? It IS a right of passage off sorts, BUT as flyingthebug pointed out, common sense is paramount and pushing it to the extreme is not what it's about.

Very sad event, and hopefully the next group of pilots coming up learns from this, but to roundly condemn buzzing is just knee-jerk and unrealistic.

[xsbank]

You'll find another thread on this site decrying the fact that pilots are categorized as trades when some think pilots are professionals.

Guess which side this 'event' and the comments about "buzzing" support?

[The Old Fogducker]

........

Very sad event, and hopefully the next group of pilots coming up learns from this, but to roundly condemn buzzing is just knee-jerk and unrealistic.

Reality Check, I don't know the environment in which you obtained initial training and day to day supervision during your flying career, but in my nearly 40 years in the business, I never found anyone responsible for an operation that condoned pilots doing buzz-jobs.

Did I do 'em in my mis-placed youthful exuberance, sure did. Does what you will read further down make me a hypocrite? Perhaps to some.

Then one of my bosses and trusted mentors in Sault ste Marie invited me over to his house for supper, a few beers, excellent quality conversation, and an expression of his belief in my intelligence and hands & feet capabilities. I was feeling pretty good to be told that he was confident I was going to have a long and distinguished career in aviation and likely to be a professional guidepost for other pilots to follow.

Then he said "I've got some pictures to show you" and pulled out a photo album from the book rack beside his Lay-Z-Boy chair. The series of shots began with a typical "hero shot" of him beside a nice little homebuilt airplane, the next one was a hole in the ice with a pile of sticks laying around ... impossible to recognize as an airplane. He said "I was doing exactly what you were doing yesterday when this happened to me."

The next dozen or so pictures were of him in the hospital in bandages, a body cast, feeding tubes, traction weights, etc. He began describing what the doctors had to do to piece his legs back together so after a few months in a hospital bed he could begin physiotherapy to learn to walk all over again. He also had to have extensive facial surgery and still showed the scars clearly.

After that, I sure toned down my buzzjobs to maybe 1% of previous, and they were well co-ordinated with everyone, and nowhere as low, nor aggressive on the pullups.

Eventually, I just seemed to outgrow doing buzzjobs as my experience in the industry increased and I came into contact with more people who had either caused fatalities ... like the fellow in the 180 I described earlier, or people that I thought had superb skills that ended up crashing in their parents farmyard. Another guy that I thought had excellent hands and feet skills was an Air Force pilot who flew lots, and lots, and lots of airshows ... Ormond Haydon Bailey. He killed himself doing a buzzjob in his P-51 Mustang.....and the list goes on. Unfortunately, the list is already way too long.

Should we, as professionalpilots roundly condemn buzzjobs Reality Check?

Of course we should ... its time to grow up. We aren't of my grandfather's era of Barnstomers.

Regards,
The Old Fogducker

[Doc]

You'll find another thread on this site decrying the fact that pilots are categorized as trades when some think pilots are professionals.

Guess which side this 'event' and the comments about "buzzing" support?

There are buzz jobs, and then there are buzz jobs. I can't imagine you've gone as far as you have without at least a little buzz job?
I'd rank some Indy car drivers as "professional", yet most will tend to succumb to the desire to do a few "donuts" after a victory. Even though the IRL levies a hefty fine for such activities. I've done more than the occasional buzz job. We used to "wake up" a group of geologists in their tents on the Ungava Bay with the Hawker. Got them out of bed right quick! Of course, we were never low enough to actually HIT somebody. There is nothing dangerous about a well planned buzz job! (boy, that comment will get me flamed)

[The Old Fogducker]

Doc ... there's nothing wrong with doing a gear up landing if everyone walks away unhurt is there?

[co-joe]

"...During the second flight, attempts were made to "buzz" the tour bus where the other band members were sleeping.[3] They succeeded twice, but the third attempt was botched. The left wing clipped the back side of the tour bus, tore the fiberglass roof then sent the plane spiraling. The plane severed the top of a pine tree and crashed into the garage of a nearby mansion, bursting into flames. Rhoads was killed instantly, as were Aycock, 36, and Youngblood, 58. All three bodies were burned beyond recognition, and were identified by dental records..."

From Wiki on the death of Randy Rhoads during a buzzjob.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Rhoads

[flyinthebug]

Buzz jobs are fun and somehow a right of passage, but use some common sense and dont push the envelope..or this is the result.

It is sad and frustrating to hear about this event and then read flyinthebug's thought about buzz jobs (no offense intended). The safety culture in commercial flying appears to have a long way to go. I guess the NTSB are justified to look at the overall condition of professionalism in commercial aviation.

JL... I did not once suggest that I condone buzz jobs. I was suggesting that almost everyone has done them (right of passage comment) but in no way condone them.

Nark.. Thank you for the details. Its been a while. The pilot in question was a friend and I watched his career evaporate over a stupid decision(Yes, he was a cowboy type pilot and yes I told him so a few times!!).

OFD.. Much like you, I simply outgrew them. My last one was a buzzjob of my buddys house that is built on a cliff on Oliver Lake (CYQT types may know this area).. His wife screamed when she looked out her kitchen window and saw a 172 coming directly at her..It shook the windows.. I figured that was too close for comfort and was my last buzz job. I dont know if I missed the house by an inch or a foot, but it was enough to scare the bejezuz outta me and that was my last one. That said, buzzjobs ARE a right of passage and as Doc said about Indy Car and (NASCAR) drivers.. Consummate pros, but even they like to have fun now and again.

Fly safe all and THINK before you act!

[Galaxy]

Thoughts and prayers to both the pilots.

[Doc]

Doc ... there's nothing wrong with doing a gear up landing if everyone walks away unhurt is there?

You really think so? A gear up landing will cause fifty to a hundred thousand dollars in damage. A well planned buzz job will result in, well, a buzz job. Fogducker.....your head needs a shake. (I know you're not serious, BTW...but some here, might think you are)
I will not name names, but I just love it when I get "lectures" on etiquette from folks who've "been there, done that", but have turned all "holier than thou", because they were never caught.
I'm not advocating buzzing a Winnipeg Blue Bombers game, while a bunch of Transport Canada inspectors are in attendance (but I know a DC3 crew, who did just that)or, lopping off a photographer's head with your prop...big difference. You don't have to descend to ten feet AGL, to say "hello" to folks on the ground. I'm not talking the corner of Portage and Main here...

[Doc]

Thoughts and prayers to both the pilots.

My thoughts (I don't pray) are with the guy who got hit....the other guy...not so much.

[RatherBeFlying]

There's been at least one photog whose neck got in the way of a glider wing while taking pictures of gliders coming in on final glide.

Low level shots are not for amateurs.

[Nark]

Buzz jobs are a calculated risk. Form what I comprehend; OFD is saying it's not worth the risk. Doc is saying it needs to be calculated carefully.


??

[Doc]

Buzz jobs are a calculated risk. Form what I comprehend; OFD is saying it's not worth the risk. Doc is saying it needs to be calculated carefully.


??

That's just about got it. BTW, I outgrew them a long while back. Haven't done one in years. I'm not recommending them, but they don't all necessarily, have to end in disaster.