On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 18:01:32 GMT, Richard Graves wrote:

"mike regish" wrote in message
...
Wow! My first thought after seeing this was "You asshole." At first I
thought he was landing outside the playing field, but he was just landing
in another one.

I'd take my chances with the trees before I'd land in a crowded sports
field.

mike regish

I'll second that one.. My first thoughts were, "What in the heck is this
person doing?"..

I had an experience once where I had to make a decision about possibly
hitting someone and putting myself at greater risk. I chose to take the
chances of going around at about 5kts above stall speed with full flaps
instead of food-processing the fools on motorcycles that decided to play
chicken with me.

I think you both are being hard on this guy. Have you read the NTSB
report?

Seems to me, that a windmilling prop at the most critical point of decision
didn't leave much choice for that pilot. Sounds like he did some trouble
shooting based on the report and all failed. Yeah, his fate was sealed on
the fact he didn't preflight, but second guessing his decision is rather
harsh when you were not confronted with his circumstances.

It looked to me, he went for the closest to the fence as he could to AVOID
hitting people.

Based on the report, it did not sound like he had much altitude to play
with when the fan quit. Having said that, picking the edge of a playing
field and wrecking a fence may have been his only choice. Nobody on the
ground was hurt, so his decision to land there may have been the best he
had made for that entire flight.

We don't know what was around the field to second guess his decisions.
Were there houses? subdivisions? more damage to be done by impact?

The amazing thing, was that this probably would have been avoided had he
did a preflight!

Allen
(425+ hours and still has checklist in hand for my preflights).