There are a lot of dumb things that people do with their time but right up there at the top is flying your own aircraft. Does this ever work out well for anybody?
How many people do we have to lose?


RIP John Denver



RIP JFK Jr.


And now, the 11th richest man in the world, John Walton. John Walton was flying an "experimental, ultralight aircraft" and crashed in Wyoming. Dude's got $18 billion dollars and what is he doing with his free time. He's flying a balsa wood airplane. He's flying a bike with a plane shell.

How would anybody feel safe flying several thousand feet in the air with something constructed from home? I put together my daughter's baby stroller and the back wheels fell off for two weeks. Now I realize other people are more proficient putting stuff together but still.

How many rock stars, athletes, and actors have to die in small plane crashes before people just stop? Buddy Holly, Otis Redding, Roberto Clemente, Lynrd Skynrd, the list goes on and on.

Stop flying small planes!

Part of enjoying life is the thrill. When you have all the money you want, the stuff you can buy pretty much become boring after a while and it's difficult to get excited. I guess this was his thrill.
Sad that he died, but if he enjoyed life, and it looks like he did, it's all that matters.

dying in my own plane wouldn't bother me at all.....dying in economy class would!

my sweetie's dad flies his own aircraft as a hobby - then again, he was in the air force, so i'm guessing he knows what he's doing.

Dennis Leary: 'we have Stevie Ray Vaughn crashing down, and we CAN'T get Jon Bon Jovi in a helicopter!!!!! "GO IN THERE JON, THERE IS A FUCKING HAIRDRESSER IN THERE!!!!"'
[Edited 6/28/05 8:54am]

Anxiety said:

That's different...he's got extensive flight training. Most of these celebs probably do not take this as seriously and learn just enough to get up in the air. Supposedly the situation with JFK is that he made some bad flight tactical decisions that a more experienced pilot would not have made.

Cow said:

Cows read tabloids too.

abierman said:

How could I forget to mention Stevie Ray Vaughn? What a tragedy that was. I appreciate celebs wanting to do their own thing and I know we all have to go somehow but it seems like there are a dispropotionate amount of stars that have died this way. Why can't they just fly coach sometimes?

My father flies his own small airplane. He is experienced, unlike that JFK schmuck. There's nothing dangerous about it if you know what you're doing, y'know like....not flying at night when you've never done it before, and flying without enough fuel....shit like that is DUMB.

GottaLetitgo said:

Payne Stewart, now that was tragic!!! His plane flew on for like thousands of miles on automatic pilot without any oxygen in the cabin!



he fuckin' rocked!!!

I work with college students in my job and one student I was working with died this way recently. He was a Freshmen and the last time I talked to him in April he was real excited because he was about to go on a study abroad for the summer. The kid went back to his hometown before the study abroad and a friend of his, according to the report in the local paper, had just got his pilot's license and offered to take my student on a scenic trip over their town. The two crashed only a short distance away from the airport and both died. Now I liked that kid and I hate that he made that one decision and paid the ultimate price for it.

People can do what they want but why are their so many tragedies when it comes to small aircraft?

actually i really wanted to fly ultralights. . . . . until i found out about the mortality rate associated with these babies. quite high actually

GottaLetitgo said:

Why? Millions of people fly "small planes" every year without incident.

Should we all stop driving too? Over 42,000 people die in auto accidents in the US every year.

Sowhat said:

I was too harsh when I said that and not entirely serious...many experienced pilots fly small planes all the time without incident. It is the inexperienced pilots, in many cases celebrities, that should leave the skies to those who know what they are doing.