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Plane crash kills one, putting other in critical condition
Serien
Member CommonPosts: 8,460
Well I just got the power back, a plane just crashed right before Edgewater High School, on the dubsdread golf corse, half onto Par ave.
No, not a commercial airline, it was on of those dinky planes, but a horrid sight nonetheless. You could hear it from my house, I'm only one street down from where it occured.
The plane was running low on "oil pressure" and was going to make an emergency landing at the Edgewater High School stadium when it coudl go no further, slammed into a power line and almost took an suv off the ground on the road.
I took some pictures...
there's still a lot of confusion going on outside, and I think I may lose power again soon.
I can't find any news articles yet (obviously, it just occured like an hour ago), but I will post one once I find one.
Sucks losing power again so fast right after those three hurricanes..but one hour is nothing compared to 9 days at a time, lol
*edit
channel 6 news (wkmg) has a video of it, apparently one of their weather choppers was over my house when it happened. It's a horrible site. The video should be on the net soon though.
Comments
Posted January 12, 2005
Brandon "Bosco" Cashen could see the Cessna in his rearview mirror as he was driving past Orlando's Dubsdread Golf Course late Tuesday afternoon. Its wings were wobbling back and forth as it skimmed the treetops, barely missing golfers and leaving College Park residents speechless.
Witnesses said the pilot seemed as though he might be able to land safely, but at the last instant the right wing dipped too low, clipped the ground and sent the plane flipping into a concrete electrical pole by the 18th green.
Cashen barely had time to pull over. Everything was moving fast, but then seemed to slow down. The broken power lines were arcing with electricity, but Cashen didn't stop to think: He ran to the plane as fast as he could.
Before the night was over, one person aboard the plane was dead, and Cashen was being called a hero.
A solid 26-year-old general contractor, Cashen had hoisted himself onto the wing of the plane's twisted wreckage.
Other witnesses said there were screams from inside the Cessna, someone calling for help. Cashen doesn't remember.
"I just didn't think," he would say later. "I wanted to make sure everybody was OK."
Cashen could see two men inside. Steve Schieber, a 26-year-old with a commercial-pilot rating, was sitting in the left seat. Dan Lawlor, 33, was in the right seat, unconscious. The two men were co-workers at Showalter Flying Service in Orlando, friends who had rented the plane for the day.
Cashen struggled desperately with Schieber's safety harness but couldn't free him.
Should he wait for firefighters? But what was that smell?
Fuel.
Fuel was leaking from the plane, and the power lines still were sputtering.
People were pouring out of the Dubsdread restaurant. A crowd of 30 or more onlookers stood back.
Cashen screamed for a knife, maybe a steak knife from inside the restaurant, anything to cut the harness.
"Someone threw me a pocketknife, and I just started cutting through his belt," he said.
He grabbed Schieber by the waist of his trousers, lifted him out and lowered him into the uplifted arms of others on the ground.
Firefighters arrived and yelled for everyone to get back. The fuel could go up at any second, or someone could get electrocuted.
"Smoke started coming out, so everyone backed away," said Magda I. Torres, a reporter at nearby 1440 AM (WPRD) radio who saw the crash.
Cashen stayed atop the wreckage.
He tried to reach Lawlor, but Schieber's empty seat was in the way. He kicked it, over and over, he doesn't remember how many times, until it broke free. He tossed the seat out and reached for the other man.
The harness, again. The pocketknife, again.
Firefighters were there now, a group of them, holding a rescue basket above their heads. Cashen lowered Lawlor into the basket as gently as he could.
The crash site quickly took on a circuslike air, with more than 100 onlookers gathered around yellow crime-scene tape. Mothers pushed strollers by as a medical helicopter landed on the fairway.
Lawlor died in surgery at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Schieber remained in critical condition late Tuesday.
From his home in Phoenix, Dennis Lawlor choked back tears as he talked about his son's love of flying, scuba diving and in-line skating.
"He was very active, very outgoing," Lawlor said. "He is going to be missed."
Lawlor said his son grew up in Ohio and was in the Air Force from 1990 to 1994. He later attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, graduating in 1997. Lawlor also said his son flew charter planes for Showalter and passed the Air Force Reserve officer test with flying colors. He planned to join the Reserve and dreamed of becoming a commercial-airline pilot.
The Cessna was registered to James Grady, the owner of another small plane that crashed into Lake Barton with a student pilot at the helm in May. Grady is director of CAP Flying group, a private flying club based at Orlando Executive Airport.
Grady wasn't aboard the plane Tuesday. Orlando Fire Department administrators say the Cessna radioed the airport tower at 4:43 p.m. to report a loss of oil pressure. It is a potentially fatal problem that can cause an engine to seize, Assistant Fire Chief Greg Hoggatt said. Witnesses reported the plane came in silently, with no engine noise.
Firefighters anticipated a crash and rushed to the airport.
"The pilot was stating that he did not feel he could make the field," Hoggatt said. "He was, in turn, looking for a field, looking for someplace where he could attempt to land the plane away from buildings, away from structures, away from citizens."
"He knew he was going down," Hoggatt said. "He's trying to bring in an aircraft that's on bad oil pressure, the engine is failing, and he's doing everything to keep it up."
At 4:47 p.m., the plane crashed near the 18th green, its last seconds captured on video from a WKMG-Channel 6 news helicopter. The plane temporarily knocked out power to about 900 homes and businesses.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.
"From what we can speculate, it looks like he was attempting to use the 18th fairway of the country club to try and land this plane in a short distance," Hoggatt said. "He did an excellent job. This could have been a catastrophe."
Tina Seller of Maitland was on the driving range when she saw the plane flying low and floundering.
"It started to kind of circle and tried to come around. What it was trying to do was land on the fairway, but it ended up on the . . . pole," she said. "Those people who got him out, they were heroic."
Rich McKay of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Mark Schlueb can be reached at mschlueb@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5417. Amy C. Rippel can be reached at arippel@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5736
http://www.facebook.com/murtb
Great story Murt!!
I myself am a pilot and fly cessna's and piper aircraft all the time. Once you loose power like that to your engine (especially oil pressure/temp related) and having it nearly impossible to get it started back up again is no fun at all. Especially when over a residential area and have to establish your aircraft and find a field all at once is no walk in the park. Things can get very confusing very quick so to bring it down without any harm to people or property is a feat anyone should be proud of.
I wonder if it was a maintenance problem or pilot error during his pre-flight check in failing to read the oil level's. Lot's of pilots skip over things that they consider not to be too critical (anything from checking the tires, to oil ,to the alternator belt and dings or damage to the prop.)
Had one guy I knew have a prop fall off while he was at 10,000 ft. MSL while flying through a canyon, and had to glide to an airport that was luckily just within distance for him to reach it (thank goodness for a high glide ratio...11:1).
"Time to kick ass and chew bubble gum!...but I'm all outta gum!!!"
"Time to kick ass and chew bubble gum!...but I'm all outta gum!!!"
on a side note, the passenger was announced dead earlier today. It was their heroic acts that saved so many, either in the dubsdread returaunt (nice resturaunt might I add), or even the mass of houses just 10 feet from the crash area.
http://www.facebook.com/murtb
Great story. Hope you internett wont go out
. Poor guys....
My dad is an airline pilot with Air Canada, he was flying the day of 9/11 so that was a little nerve wracking.