PUYALLUP, Wash. – A small airplane dropping from the sky after its engine failed wound up on a cushioning bunch of portable toilets — and the pilot was able to walk away apparently unhurt.
Gary Mayor of the Federal Aviation Administration says the Cessna 182 crashed Friday afternoon in Washington state after taking off from Thun Field, an airfield owned by Pierce County southeast of Tacoma.
Sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer says the plane was about 150 feet in the air when the engine quit. Troyer told The News Tribune that the pilot tried to turn around to land but didn’t quite make it.
The plane hit a fence, flipped over and landed upside down on top of the portable toilets standing in a storage yard.
That’s a tale for the grand kids.
OH SHIT !!!
or
“Please don’t squeeze the Charmin”
And here’s a photo of LZ. Well, at least he couldn’t complain about not finding a crapper.
I guess he really had to go…
150ft off the ground and tried to return to the airport. Rule number one when your engine craps out on takeoff – the airport behind you is worthless. It takes over 1000ft of alt to turn 180 degrees and make it back to the airport.
My stepfather, who was a pilot, used to say that “any landing you can walk away from is a good landing”.
Speaking of toilets, when he was figuring out his flight plans, he would caculate using my mother’s bladder capacity rather than the aircraft’s fuel capacity, said he would never run out of fuel that way… No, mother didn’t appreciate the humor…
Poo-all-up, Wash!
Somebody stop me.
RBG
hmm surprised no one stated the obvious….
What a crappy landing!
#4, Bemo, that’s just a rule of thumb. It all depends on aircraft loading, density altitude and runway length. I’ve had an engine failure at 350 ft. in a Cessna-310 and managed to set it down in the remainder of a 5,000 ft. runway at a density altitude of 3,500 ft. Only half tanks and one passenger, but I made the final turnaround to the taxiway.
Of course, my personal tank was just about empty once the tires quit squealing.
#8, Bubba,
A few witty comments come to mind but I am quite sure at the time it wasn’t very funny. I’m glad you could walk away with just an empty tank.