Classic British Flight Sim

Christopher

I started this thread to report the news and information as it became known

NOT to get embroiled in speculation as so many post like this are

I do know what human nature is..which is why I said what I did in the intro

Your post is pointless and uncalled for

Garry

Tragic, I'm sure we all feel for the families,

Late last week in central Canada a Bonanza crashed, it was carrying 5 members of an engineering company, the ceo was the pilot, all perished.. what makes it doubley tragic is that 5 months ago to the day, the father and then owner of the company was killed along with another top exec, when their cessna crashed, the 6 yr old grandaughter who was also on board was found alive and hanging from her seat belt, a little bruised but apart from that unscathed.

Can't imagine how the family are feeling.

Robbie.

Always very sad when lives are lost, but thankfully there were no fatalities on the ground.

Nigel.

As I can make out so far, we can rule out Pilot Error

A spokesperson from Biggin Hill Airport said: "His cool judgment in managing the aircraft emergency and minimizing loss of life on the ground is typical of such a remarkable man and he will be sorely missed."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7322519.stm

Once a long time ago I was spending time at the beach when an Aerial Billboard Cessna 182 lost power and ditched in the ocean right in front of were I was. Nothing spectacular, after a nice slow stall, he plopped into the drink, the pilot swam to shore and the plane was pulled out of the water in one piece by a tow truck within the hour. But if the internet had existed then and someone had posted the news item to our favorite sim site, then I would have something to add to the media coverage, my own account of the happening. Same thing here. You never know when somebody in you circle was actually there when it happened. All accidents in general are terrible and happen too often without any help from us. We can only hope that we may learn from them enough to avoid any unnecessary repeats in the future. We all have heard about the eager beavers who takes off without visually checking the fuel supply and the resulting SHTF that follow!

The victims of the crash have now been named (at least in the press and media) and I had the pleasure of meeting one of them several times.
David Leslie was a well known racing driver (an ex-British champion) and I met him through my connections with the safety side of the sport in the 1980's, where he came and gave talks 'from the drivers perspective' of safety. A very nice chap, far too sensible to be a racing driver IMHO. He will be sadly missed, as will all the others by friends and families. It seems for members of the motor racing fraternity, flying is now a lot more dangerous than racing.

I loved watching David Leslie in the early days of BTCC racing with Mike Smith and (was it ?) Andy Rouse and Frank Sytner and the likes......

He was a great privateer and an excellent racer.....my condolances..... :-(

Also to add 2 of my friends were "dispatched" to the scene on a Cat A call in the LAS and hats off to the quick response of the emergency services....

Tony