THE DARWIN AWARDS—AVIATION STYLE!

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THE DARWIN AWARDS--SPECIAL MORBID HALLOWEEN EDITION!

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Ladies and Gentlemen, from the Flight Blog...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

This year's costume:  a blind pilot!

And now may I present... 

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THE DARWIN AWARDS--SPECIAL MORBID HALLOWEEN EDITION!

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Following is a few aviation-related "Darwin Awards"*, most of which can be found at darwinawards.com.

Forgive the gallows humor, folks, but I for one am happy to see these would-be, wannabe and inadvertent aviators excluded from the aeronautical gene pool . . . and from our world's cockpits.  Direct links to the full reports can be found in the titles below. 

Happy Halloween!

—Cap'n Aux

 

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1.)  Mile High Club Epic Failure...

23 December 1991, Florida

National Transportation Safety Board report
Aircraft: PIPER PA-34-200T, 

Registration: N47506


Injuries: 2 Fatal.

Witnesses observed the airplane's right wing fail in a dive and crash. Examination of the wreckage and bodies revealed that both occupants were partially clothed and the front right seat was in the full aft reclining position.  Neither body showed evidence of seatbelts or shoulder harnesses being worn.

The NTSB determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:
The pilot in command's improper in-flight decision to divert her attention to other activities not related to the conduct of the flight.

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2.)  JATO (Jet-Assisted Takeoff)...’67 Chevy-Style
Now debunked as urban legend, this story is nevertheless the most popular Darwin Award of all time.  Presumably, a moron strapped a military JATO rocket to his '67 Chevy Impala, lit it off, and vaporized on the side of a mountain at 300 mph.  The only piece of the machine not atomized was the rear bumper with a sticker that read, “Hows my driving?  Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT.”

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 2.5)  "Serious Darwin Aviation Award Attempt EPIC FAIL!"

This dude shoulda won one, but FAILED!  (i.e., survived!)

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CARTOON COURTESY OF CAP'N AUX ;-)

 3.)  "Flying while Intoxicated" . . . 
Or, "Hold my beer . . . watch THIS!"

After throwing down a few at a local pub, a Private Pilot hopped in his new Piper PA-32.  Without a proper preflight, he attempted to takeoff...with the gust lock still installed.  An anti-theft device, the Gust Lock freezes the control yoke full aft, mimicking a steep climb.  Climb steeply our hero did, according to witnesses going "straight up in the air like an acrobat," followed by, "a nose dive."

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4.) DB Cooper and his fans...

While infamous hijacker DB Cooper probably perished during his night jump out of a Boeing 727 into a -60° ice storm over Oregon, he has had his share of imitators.

Not to be outdone, in May, 2000, skyjacker Reginald Chua jumped out of Philippine Air Flight 812 A330...with a homemade parachute.  When our skyjacking ace chickened out at the last minute, a flight attendant helpfully pushed him out!  His body was found buried in the mud 4 days later.

When asked at a press conference why he was allowed to board the flight with a parachute, the Philippine Air spokesman replied nonchalantly, "Many passengers board our planes with parachutes."

—More info on this at Wikipedia

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4.5) D.B. Cooper Wannabe Redux...sorta...

(Darwin Award Epic Failure!...er, Success! er...?!)

 His world crashing around him, financial consultant Marcus Schrenker opted for a bailout. A bail out of his plane, that is.
 Attempting to fake his own death, Schrenker made an emergency distress call from his Piper Meridian, then parachuted out, leaving it to crash.  Scrambled to assist, Jet fighters reported the door open and no evidence of a pilot aboard.  Authorities quickly caught on, and nabbed the wannabe Darwinian within 3 days.
Charged with willful destruction of an aircraft and knowingly and willfully communicating a false distress message, he was sentenced to 51 months in prison and fined nearly 1 million dollars.

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 5.) Sling Blade's a genius compared to these two...

 Casualties: 2 fatal.  A "crack" father and son lawn mowing team (or maybe they were high on crack) at Tucumcari, NM airport decided they were good enough to fly a plane on their own—without a lick of training.  After successfully refueling a plane and taking off, they quickly found that even the simplest Cessna has a few more controls than the most sophisticated Toro.  (Flight path strikingly similar to #3, above.)

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6.) Let there be Lighter...

In 1981 A security guard at a California airport moonlighted as a gas thief by siphoning fuel from planes all night.  When one tank proved troublesome, said guard  peered into the gas tank to diagnose the problem, then lit a match...

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7.) What time is it, Captain?  It's Kaboom time! (Hamas terrorist style)...Or, Divine Retribution, Darwinian Style!

While not really aviation-related, I want to end with a bang—involving terrorist Darwin recipients!

Excerpt from article, too well-written to be monkeyed with:

A member of the military wing of Gaza’s ruling terrorist movement Hamas, who went by the name of Khalout Majid (until he went kaboom), died when a bomb he was guarding went off ...

Would you like a ticket in Evolving...

Back in 1999, in Jerusalem, the switch away from Daylight Saving Time raised havoc with Palestinian terrorists. The Palestinians refused to live on “Zionist Time,” with dire consequences:

At precisely 5:30 PM on Sunday, September 5, 1999, two coordinated car bombs exploded in different cities, killing three terrorists who were transporting the bombs. . . 

...or De-volving?

. . . the bombs had been prepared in a Palestine-controlled area, and set to detonate on Daylight Saving Time. But the confused drivers had already switched to Standard Time... As a result, the cars were still en-route when the explosives detonated, removing the terrorists from humanity’s genetic considerations.

In fairness to our poor Dead Terrorists, I'll allow one of them to speak out here, on behalf of himself and his fellow deceased Jihadians...

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AND FINALLY...

Here's a fun li'l video of some quite telling aviation "oopsie!" pics.  It's entitled, "Bad Day at the Airport"—the title sez it all!

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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*"The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it..."

 

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Further Reading...

—Gremline, an online aviation safety digest, examining lessons from dumb pilots...

—Sadly, even professional pilots need to be culled from the herd from time to time... 

      —Additional Wikipedia link...

—Urban Legends--multiple Darwin Award links, and debunks 

—Get the book, "Darwin Awards: Evolution in Action," at Amazon.com (and don't forget to order Code Name: Dodger with it as well, LOL!)

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 Posting 11/14 at 11:00Phx (18:00z):

THERE I WUZ!:  

(*Note:  I wrote and scheduled this post prior to Hurricane Sandy.  My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims.  In no way  do I want to detract from the many hardships and sufferings still being experienced by survivors and victims!)

CAP'N AUX MEETS HURRICANE HUGO!

"We circled Christiansted Harbor and gingerly set down in the water, careful not to hit any flotsam from the newly-sunk ships. We taxied up the ramp and out of water.  Our fellow Seaplane Shuttle employees ran up and cheered—we were the first sign of civilization they’d seen in three days."

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