87 year old hits skydiver while flying plane

[neufox47]

Sharon Trembley, 87, was doing what are called "touch and goes" with the Cessna, a maneuver in which the plane touches the ground and ascends again. The Polk County Sheriff's Department initially identified the pilot as Shannon Trembley.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/08/us/pla...html?hpt=hp_t3

[digitaldeath]

Wowz I think it's illegal to fly a plane at his age?

Dentists with pilots licenses, thoughts?

Also, pilots, fly to mn well grab lunch were Kirby Puckett assaulted some lady then head to Seattle or Tahoe or wherever your condo is.

Noot vail tho

[mobygrape]

seems like a 2 part failure, no? how did party 1 not see party 2 and adjust their line?

also, already posted in the special collection of junk thread. but we don't all check that one.

[Skistack]

Pilot was a WWII vet and has been a pilot since then. Pretty sure the anticipated LZ was someplace other than the runway.

[userA]

i wont even get in a car with an 87 yr. old driver.
b

[that dude who did that thing]

i wont even get in a car with an 87 yr. old driver.
b

I know I don't get under a parachute with people who land on active runways.

Some of you seem to be assuming the pilot was at fault because of her age. That's a pretty poor assumption based on the little we know.

[Shredhead]

I know plenty of pilots in their 80's and no it's not illegal. They usually loose their medial and then move to sport planes or hire a young instructor to fly with them.

Unfortunately for Sharon, with the NTSB and FAA involved, her license is probably gone even if it wasn't her fault.

[iceman]

They usually loose their medial

What does that mean?

[flyandski365]

I have done touch and goes at this very same grass strip, it's very low traffic. Someone fucked up big time. Either the pilot dropping jumpers didn't call it on the traffic freq., the cessna pilot didn't hear it if he did, or did and wasn't paying attention. I know from flying in this area that some pilots don't monitor the traffic freq. at this grass strip because there's almost never another aircraft in the pattern. Stupid. I can't think of another place to land a parachute at this field other than the runway, but it isn't the kind of place I would think would make a good LZ in the first place. Then again I don't jump out of perfectly good aircraft so I wouldn't know. Crazy photos.

[flyandski365]

What does that mean?

Medical.

[stuckathuntermtn]

I have done touch and goes at this very same grass strip, it's very low traffic. Someone fucked up big time. Either the pilot dropping jumpers didn't call it on the traffic freq., the cessna pilot didn't hear it if he did, or did and wasn't paying attention. I know from flying in this area that some pilots don't monitor the traffic freq. at this grass strip because there's almost never another aircraft in the pattern. Stupid. I can't think of another place to land a parachute at this field other than the runway, but it isn't the kind of place I would think would make a good LZ in the first place. Then again I don't jump out of perfectly good aircraft so I wouldn't know. Crazy photos.

Yeah, that's kinda it. Someone wasn't paying attention to someone else, or both and it also seems like a weird place to land. And people fly tail draggers in FL?!

As far as I know, there's no upper age for a pilot's license. Just like a driver's license, but with much more stringent requirements. You and your aircraft must meet certain requirements annually, but once everything checks out or is fixed or whatever, you're good to go.
Small airports don't have control towers. I'm always amazed there aren't more accidents in places like Talkeetna. Busy as fuck airstrip in the summer and no control tower. I know my brother's barely domesticated husky once caused a friend to shutdown on takeoff. Someone once backed into my bro's plane with their truck. Planes go splat all the time in the mountains. Still don't think 2 of anything airborne have touched each other. remarkable.

[Ted Striker]

loose their medial

What does that mean?

Medical.

At 87, I'm guessing his medial is pretty loose too.

[stuckathuntermtn]

I had a loose medial once. I got photoreactive gausing phasers all over my free loop articulation flanged upper torsion reactionary compressors.
The head engineer for the medial photovolteics got really upset. hahaha, oops!

[hooked]

I know plenty of pilots in their 80's and no it's not illegal. They usually loose their medial and then move to sport planes or hire a young instructor to fly with them.

Unfortunately for Sharon, with the NTSB and FAA involved, her license is probably gone even if it wasn't her fault.

The pilot was an old dude. I don't think that they let women become fighter pilots in WWII.

[SB]

Its a guy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...g-America.html

Technically women did fly fighters during WWII but not in combat. They were used to ferry planes from factories to airports and training facilities.

Some pilots can have "target fixation", so much that they have crashed.

[Ski to Be]

So who is at fault here? It is bad situational awareness from both parties IMO but I don't have any clue what the protocols are.

[userA]

bigger usually wins in these situations.
b

[Ted Striker]

So who is at fault here? It is bad situational awareness from both parties IMO but I don't have any clue what the protocols are.

Yeah, both.

It's a private airport without a "mandatory frequency" so the pilot doesn't legally need to have a radio, or be in contact with anybody, but it's simply good airmanship to do so. And that C170 looks like it was in really nice shape, so there's very little chance that it didn't have a radio installed.

The skydiver didn't just appear from nowhere, he had to have jumped from another plane, so the same applies. If the two pilots weren't in radio contact or at least had discussed the plan to drop jumpers onto the field beforehand, then the guy flying the jump plane is also at fault.

The jumper technically has right of way over the airplane, but landing on a runway - especially an active one - is fucking retarded, unless prior arrangements were made to ensure the runway wouldn't be in use.

And even though the dude was old, nobody would've been able to avoid a guy dropping from above like that. The jumper would've been obscured by the roof of the plane until it was too late. It would be like someone jumping from a freeway overpass onto your car.