'Hero' pilot.

[Le Chat]

The pilot of the small plane that crashed into the housing estate last week has been hailed 'a hero' for aiming to avoid the houses.
Now call me cynical but if I were the pilot of that plane, I would be trying to find open space to land the plane safely, so that I may survive! The fact that he was steering the plane away from the houses towards the open space was more about trying to land the plane,saving himself and the passengers. The result that he only hit one house was just incidental, wasn't it?

[Gromit]

I blame the family whose house he hit. When they went on holiday they left the landing light on.

[Loosehead]

ok you are cynical.

You wern't there how can you possibly know what the pilot was doing and thinking from your smug little armchair?How can you know the state of the plane? how fast it was descending what he had time to do and what he did not?

Why must we always try and dig out the negative side of everything?

[SKA]

pmsl at Gromit!!

[simonruss]

Gromit should hang your head in shame, sick yet funny

[Postdog]

Have you looked at a map of the crash site? Hardly open space to land, but a space where he knew he'd limit damage and fatalities. The fact that he got one house shows he nearly did it....

and bear in mind he wasn't flying as such - all he could do was try and steer it.

[Le Chat]

I get that Postdog but as a purely personal survival instinctive impulse, he would have desperately in that moment ,steered towards flat land in the hope (vain) that the chances of himself and his passengers surviving were statistically better than hitting a brick wall?

[Postdog]

I can see your point of view but I think it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. Obviously had he WANTED to die, he wouldn't have steered it, but I should think in those few moments he had, he knew that his chance of survival was minimal. As you say though, more chance where a wall of bricks isn't in the way....

Loved the joke by Gromit BTW!

[stokemaveric]

at the end of the day how can you joke about an event where people have died?hope it doesnt happen to your family 1 day...

[rabbitygirl]

Of course this is a tragedy but there can be humour in even sad things.

Mr Harman, the owner of the house, unintentionally made me laugh in his interview. in the Mail this morning.

Apart from the fact he is continuing his golfing holiday and leaving Mrs H to sort things out, he describes receiving news of the crash but thought the plane had just clipped his house. He then watched it burn on tv, adding that

'It didn't hit home really.'

[stokemaveric]

rabbitygirl...'humour in even sad things'?i bet the family of those killed are not laughing too loudly today...im no killjoy and i like a good laugh but come on people have lost their lives here..

[Postdog]

ooh I bet you are a laugh at parties!.

[stokemaveric]

actually i am postdog but i have seen enough death whilst i was serving in the army to know that it is no laughing matter.

[B00]

lol, im sorry, but the last line quoted by the householder by rabbitygirl made me snigger.

goes and sits in the corner in shame >>>

[sp1214]

Don't they test the engines at full throttle before taking off?

[Wop/tpo]

Regarding the query by 8ball plane passengers are not issued with parachutes, and even if issued they would have been too low to use them.

[Quizmonster]

The pilot of a crashed aircraft is invariably dubbed either a 'hero' or, effectively, a 'fool'. Someone always claims he was deliberately steering away from some site such as a primary-school playground (hero)or - at the later enquiry - that "pilot error" (fool) was entirely responsible for the crash in the first place.
The one thing we can be virtually certain of is that neither epithet ever really fits the situation. He was almost certainly just a well-trained and experienced bloke who did the best he could in the situation...end of story.

[anotheoldgit]

Oh all these armchair pilots, I bet the only thing they have ever flown is a kite, and the more intelligent a model plane, (but these can be a sod at times).

In my book he was a hero (and I don't tend to use this label very often). Google Earth this area and you will see he was making for the only available wooded area, persumably to try and clip the trees to try and slow the plane down, but unfortunately he was losing height too rapidly.

[Le Chat]

I actually am now aware after the latest on this story, that the pilot was waving to people in a playing field to get out of the way - so as well as trying to save himself and passengers, he still had the presence of mind to think about others. I didn't know this before I posted the question. He was pretty heroic after all.