3 die as plane, helicopter collide in fireballs over El Cajon (CA)

[question everything]

3 die as plane, helicopter collide in fireballs over El Cajon

SIGNONSANDIEGO

6:51 p.m. February 8, 2006

EL CAJON – Three people died when a small plane and helicopter collided in fireballs Wednesday near Grossmont High School in El Cajon, authorities and witnesses said.

Witnesses reported seeing two bodies on the ground, believed to be from the helicopter. A third body was reported elsewhere, believed from the plane.

Authorities confirmed three dead in the collision around 4:40 p.m., and said no injuries on the ground were reported.

(snip)

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060208-1707-midair3.html

[GrumpyGreg]

1. Good Lord! A miracle no one on the ground was hurt.

[napi21]

2. So sad, but were these pilots blind????

I understand how difficult it is to see commercial jets flying at 300-400 knots, but we're talking about visual here! Both the 'copter and the plan are fairly manuverable aircraft. I have to assume neither pilot was paying any attention to what the he** he was doing!!!!

[catnhatnh]

3. Ever been...

in an automobile accident???

[napi21]

4. Yes I have, but I admit, I wasn't paying enough attention!

It was a long time ago, and I was on an unfamiliar route home, but I wasn't paying the attention I should have been, and I missed a stop sign! My car was totaled!

Does my ignorance excuse these pilots?

[catnhatnh]

5. No...

...but it does explain it....to a pilot flying is no big deal.They make the same mistakes WE make in cars,though more often with more tragic results...Obviously they are not "excused"-caskets preclude that.It was an accident,no more,no less...

[napi21]

6. You may be right, but I think flying a plane requires more than

is required to get a drivers license! Any idiot can pass a drivers test. I would HOPE that's not the case in getting a pilots license!

I really hope you're wrong on this one, and I'm right. It would be a frightening idea that pilots are as irresponsible and oblivious to their surroudings as drivers on our roads are!

[Journeyman]

7. Pilots fly drunk, when they're exhausted, when they're emotional upset...

every negative you can imagine an "idiot" with a license to drive a car can and does engage in, so do pilots. They're human. Same as you and I. It wasn't too long ago a couple of pilots for a commercial airliner were pulled from their cockpit because they'd been drinking in the airport bar before their flight. A dozen years or so back, a popular "eye in the sky" traffic reporter here in Los Angeles was killed when he crashed his plane on take off. He was found to be drunk. It was 6 am. I remember some foolishness involving a miscalculation caused by pilot exhaustion in a hospital's helicopter crash in New York a few years back. Two police helicopters with three officers in each (so plenty of eyes there for danger) crashed during the pursuit of a stolen car maybe a dozen years ago -- again, here in the Southland.

You may remember, in the mid-'70s, two airliners with hundreds of people on board slammed into each other on a runway on Tenerife Island. One plane was taxiing, the other was taking off, but human error -- explained only in part by fog on the runways -- caused hundreds to lose their lives.

So there we have it. People are people, subject to frailties and foibles in all their affairs. I can't say what happened in this particular case, but in life -- as in air travel -- there are a lot of ups and downs, some more jarring than others.

[napi21]

8. You're right. They're all human. That won't stop me from saying

the same thing I say about the dumb asses here in Ga. who keep running into each other... what the hell are you doing> Pay attention to what you're suppose dot be doing NOW!

It's sad that the dtupidity of the road has transferred to teh skys too.

[Journeyman]

10. You'll get no argument here, napi21. . .

I'm constantly amazed at how unthinking people can be behind the wheel. I'm sure many (can't say all, but many) are decent, reasonably intelligent people, but put 'em behind a wheel and they seem to lose all sense of who they are and what they're doing. I've seen people reading the paper, putting on makeup, shaving, and trying to read a map while they drive. The cell phone users are the worst, because they seem to believe its only natural to gab on the phone while wheeling 70 miles an hour on a 9-lane wide freeway. There was a single-car accident the other day: the driver was drunk, talking on their cell phone, and fiddling with the knobs on their radio when they plowed into an overpass pylon. All I could say to my wife was, "Well, at least no one intelligent was hurt."

[Wcross]

11. Anyone who flies has had a near miss at some point.

I have had several. It is nothing like driving a car, you have to keep looking not only 360 degrees around the horizon but also above and below.

[CottonBear]

9. One of our fellow DUers, maveric and their son saw the accident.

The plane may have been experimental.

I'll look for a link to the DUer's thread.

edit: link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x364683

[puerco-bellies]

12. There is a lot of air traffic in that area

I've been in small planes over El Cajon. Lots of small aircraft heading in and out of the Los Angeles area through a kind of a traffic choke point. Some planes heading north and south are lining up to and from Van Nuys airport, Whitman field among others. I remember a buddy asking me and my ex to help him get a visual on a plane that was on the same course and descending. We were not in any immediate danger but I got kind of creeped out by the amount of traffic ALL around us. All it takes is missing one radio report, or the glint off a wing to obscure another aircraft inbound, let alone one coming from blind areas directly above or below you..