An autopilot can’t be controlled from the ground. And it’s not a ‘miracle’ that the aircraft didn’t hit a city or town, since the vast majority of land in the U.S. is uninhabited. It would have really, really bad luck for the aircraft to come down over a populated area.
There was a case a few years ago of a guy who tried to prop-start his Piper Cub without tying it down properly first, and it took off without him, flew a long way, and crash landed into a tree with very little damage. He shipped it home, fixed it up, and is flying it again.
There have been a number of cases of pilots falling asleep at the controls and running out of gas. One I read about a few years ago, the guy woke up when the engine quit from fuel starvation, but he happened to be within gliding range of an airport and he glided it in and landed. I imagine it must have been pretty embarassing, but it’s better than being dead.
OK, so I was feeling badly and admit that I may have hurt feelings, and I apologize to anyone–and I really DO feel badly for Payne Stewart’s companions and everyone’s families.
BUT.
Jeez, what a pompous, bible-thumping jerk he turns out to have been! I read the news and turn on the TV and I see: “I’m proud of the fact that my faith in God is so much stronger and I’m so much more at peace with myself than I’ve ever been in my life,” Stewart said after the win. “Where I was with my faith last year and where I am now is leaps and bounds.”
He seems to have been one of those people incapable of opening his mouth without telling us that he and God and Jesus are Just Like That, which is why he’s so successful. Well, I guess God isn’t as good a co-pilot as he’s been made out to be! I can’t help but get the same warm glow of irony I feel whenever a busload of nuns goes over a cliff, or several hundred Muslim pilgrims trample ech other into the dust.
It’s just a shame he took four people with him–maybe they were evil, godless heathens?
I remember a story about 15 years ago of a Polish jet fighter (MiG ?) that malfunctioned in Polish skies, pilot bailed out, but the jet continued to fly on the auto pilot. It cleared Germany completely, and was already halfway across Belgium when the fuel ran out. It was headed for the South Belgian town of Kortrijk, town center that is.
Two Belgian F-16’s, who had accompanied the Polish jet from the moment it entered Belgian airspace, managed to divert the jet by means of wingtipping (now, does that sound very “Top Gun”-ish or what ??) !!
Unfortunately, although it crached in a rural area, the jet went down in a large farmhouse, sadly killing the two occupants. But a major disaster was prevented though.
I think your attack on Stewart is a bit uncalled for.
You yourself admit that you didn’t know much about him. Is it surprising that the media, after his odd death, would grab some quotes like that to paint the guy as spiritual?
After all, a lot of people find comfort in this spirituality after a person is gone.
I’m a huge sports fan, and I follow enough golf to have seen him interviewed plenty of times. I never got the impression that he was self-righteous or a Bible-thumper, only that he cared about his faith for his own personal reasons.
Actually, he wasn’t like that at all. I met Payne Stewart, once at a golf function and once at a charity function. Yes, he “had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” as people born again are wont to say, and yes, he said so whenever he had an opportunity. But to my knowledge, he never told people that they ought to find Jesus or anything like that. He certainly didn’t prosyletize to strangers, though I believe that he helped other Christian golfers get reborn. As it happens, a lot of golf people thought Stewart was kind of a PITA in the few years before he re-found God. Afterward was when he became the good person that people are remembering today. And afterward was when he found the inner peace necessary to win golf tournaments. So for him, his relationship with Jesus is exactly why he became so successful during the ’99 season. As sad as this incident is, I’m glad that he was able to find what he was looking for before he died, and can only hope that the other victims did, too.
Just as faith is not for everybody, not everyone benefits from atheism.
My diatribe over, I’ve already heard a pretty brutal Payne Stewart joke. I’ll post it in a few days when feelings have calmed.
I do apologize to Catrandom, and anyone else hwo knows a nun or a Muslim and is rendered sleepless by my comments (though see my other post, above), but I also stand by what I said (wow–I’ve offended Satan!).
Are you religious people telling me if I said, “If there’s a God, may I be struck dead now” and was promptly hit by a bolt of lightning, you wouldn’t have a good laugh?
I just find it ironic when someone who self-righteously trumpets how successful he is because he and God are going steady is felled from the sky like that.
Why is it ironic? He never claimed that God made him invincible, or that God protected him from aviation accidents. He only claimed that for him personally, knowing God gave him a peace that allowed him to be a happier person and play better golf. Which claim, as it happens, was demonstrably true for him.
Methinks you’re using the Alanis Morissette definition of ironic here.
OK, I know I said I was out of here (how we womenfolk change our minds!) but I could not stand by for dhanson’s remark.
Umm, DH, I just referred to MYSELF as Frankenstein’s monster–I realize the reference was over your head, but the sight of you getting all hissy after misreading it was too much to bear.
And folks–if I ever dare God to strike me dead and get hit by lightning? Go ahead and laugh, you have my full permission.
I am definitely no Christian fanatic, but I’ll choose “appalled”. I am glad to see that I am not the only one to see the self-righeous irony shown here.
FWIIW, Stewart was one of only a few reasons I would sit through an entire golf tourny on the television.
In the archives there is information on people flying that Challenger after it went boom. It seems people were more caught up with the fantastic sky show that they forgot that the people in it were probably still alive as those things are more than bullet proof.
I was not offended, Flora. I merely found your accessment of Stewart to be based on a tiny bit of information, and thought you jumped to conclusions about a person who you admitted to being unfamiliar with.
I have no problem with character assassinations, but it helps to know about the character so that the bullets hit the target.
