X-Virus-Scanned: clean according to Sophos on Logan.com X-SpamCatcher-Score: 2 [X] Return-Path: Received: from [68.202.132.19] (account marv@lancaironline.net) by logan.com (CommuniGate Pro WEBUSER 5.1.7) with HTTP id 1871593 for lml@lancaironline.net; Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:38:05 -0500 From: marv@lancair.net Subject: Re: Stupid Pilot, Stupid People To: lml X-Mailer: CommuniGate Pro WebUser v5.1.7 Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:38:05 -0500 Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <011901c75a82$6ea58ca0$0400a8c0@mountain0676a7> References: <011901c75a82$6ea58ca0$0400a8c0@mountain0676a7> X-Priority: 3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset="iso-8859-1";format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Posted for "Bryan Burr" : The pilot's brother, Leslie Brooks, is my next door neighbor. What this article doesn't say speaks to the stupidity of the men. None of them had told their wives they were going flying. My neighbor's wife only knew that he was to be home at 5 pm on Saturday. At church on Sunday I met here in the hallway of our chapel. She told me that her husband hadn't come home and she thought he had flown with his brother to check on their houseboat at Lake Powell because they do this a few times every winter. Her sister in-law had received a phone call on Sunday morning that they had been in an airplane accident but they were ok. That was Sunday morning and the phone call was cut short due to poor reception. She didn't even know they had gone. Being in the commercial aviation business I called my FAA Principal Operations Inspector at home on Sunday morning to see if he could help. He was the on duty accident officer for the weekend so he would be the one "in the know". He knew nothing. I asked my neighbor's wife a few basic questions that I was sure the FAA Inspector would want to know. How many people, what kind of airplane, what is the N number, had they actually made it to their destination the day before, where they on their way home. She had no answer for any of the questions except the 3 people involved and their names. She thought they were in a Cessna. Actually the airplane was a Cirrus. At 9:30 am on Sunday morning all we knew was they had crashed and they were OK because of a broken phone call. About 11:00 am another phone call was received and "they were on the lake". Another broken phone call. What lake? Utah Lake, the point of departure, one of several lakes between here and the destination, or Lake Powell? This was getting frustrating. I called the Inspector again with this new information. I felt they had made it to Lake Powell and had crashed into the lake. Utah lake has excellent cell phone coverage and we wouldn't have broken calls. I felt they had cell phones but because they were probably wet the phones weren't working. I suggested the Inspector get with the Park Rangers at Lake Powell and see if they could be found. By this time the fisherman had located the men and delivered them to the Park Rangers. The men were then recovering in the houseboat that they had gone to inspect. Still no phone calls to family or the FAA. We, the FAA, Family and neighbors got into this whole thing by backing into it. These idiots had left about 10 am Saturday morning. They had no flight plan. They had told no family members of their intentions, their route of flight, etc. They called no one to say they had arrived safely. They called no one to say they were returning home. Complete fools. The route of flight from Spanish Fork, UT to Bullfrog Marina Airport is over some of the most desolate and unforgiving in the nation. We are talking high mountain ridge lines (11,000 feet) badlands, deep canyons, no roads, no communications, no water, cold. Furthermore, they departed the Lake Powell, Bullfrog Marina airport and decided to do some sightseeing. What really happened is they were doing full power high speed low level flying over the lake. Through the canyons low level 150 knots. The landing gear actually hit the water first. This was high speed CFIT (Controlled Flight Into Terrain). Have you ever looked at a sectional of Lake Powell. There are definite altitude restrictions because it is a National Recreation Area. This time of year there is nobody on the water. Perhaps only a lone fisherman or two. The water was 44 degrees. They had to swim for over an hour to shore. It was 4:30 pm. The airplane sank in 300 feet of water. Certainly no ELT was going to work. The night temps drop to 27 degrees. NO BODY KNEW ANYTHING until the next morning. Bryan J. Burr N132BB Neighbor to Stupid People! Olympic Wrestler, Two Others Survive UT Accident Plane Was "Flying Low" When It Impacted Lake A man fishing on Utah's Lake Powell caught some serious fish Sunday morning, in the form of Olympic wrestling champion Rulon Gardner. Gardner was a passenger in a Cirrus SR22 (file photo of type, below) with two other men from Utah -- pilot Randy Brooks, and his brother Leslie -- when it crashed in Lake Powell on Saturday, Garfield County public information officer Becki Bronson told ANN. Bronson added the plane was "flying low to the water" when it impacted the lake. The three men were able to exit the aircraft before it sank, and swam for more than an hour in frigid water before spending the night without shelter, according to Bronson. After they were discovered by a fisherman on the lake, the three men were initially taken to Bullfrog Marina where National Park Service Ranger Medics examined them. Instead of an AIRVAC helicopter, the three opted for Brooks' son-in-law to fly them to American Fork for further medical evaluation. All suffered hypothermic injuries to their feet, but no life-threatening injuries were reported. "It takes only about 30 minutes for someone swimming in 44 degree water to start suffering the effects of hypothermia, so the fact that they swam in it for an hour, not to mention surviving the plane crash and the night without fire or shelter, is pretty amazing," said Steven Luckesen, a district ranger at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. "If these guys were a cat with nine lives, they just used up three of them." The exact location of the crash is still uncertain, and is believed to be near the Garfield County/San Juan County border running through Lake Powell in Good Hope Bay. An investigation is currently underway. Rulon Gardner is a two-time Olympic champion and three time national champion in Greco-Roman wrestling. At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Gardner made history with a win over then-undefeated Alexandre Karelin, in what was dubbed the 'Miracle of the Mat'. On Monday, Gardner -- who also survived a bad motorcycle crash in 2004, and being stranded during a 2002 snowmobile expedition -- told ESPN's Dan Patrick the plane was flying approximately 30 feet off the water just before the crash. He believes the left main landing gear hit the water first, and caused the plane to cartwheel. In an earlier interview on NBC's Today Show, Gardner said, "We kinda came down then we skipped once then hit a second time. That's when we dug in and the propeller stopped. That just spun us, then we just kinda went nose down into the water."