Biplane Accident on I-80 in Wyoming

[Vision401]

It's a crash. The plane's wings are totaled. He "crashed" into a truck hauling pigs. If it wasn't a crash there would be no damage.

[dclaxon]

It's a crash. The plane's wings are totaled. He "crashed" into a truck hauling pigs. If it wasn't a crash there would be no damage.

But I can see Bob's point. even the one the other day where the girl made an emergency landing on the highway, she didn'e hit any cars, didn't hit any signposts, didn't put a scratch on the airplane, or herself, (or any cars or anything else,) but that one was also being called a crash.

Dave

[Floatsflyer]

...even the one the other day where the girl made an emergency landing on the highway, she didn'e hit any cars, didn't hit any signposts, didn't put a scratch on the airplane, or herself, (or any cars or anything else,) but that one was also being called a crash.

Dave

Yup, see #7

[rwanttaja]

Looking at the etymology of "crash" is interesting. I had thought the word was onomatopoedic; an attempt to invent a word that sounds like the event itself. But there's apparently some history going back well before the industrial age.

Ron Wanttaja

[Floatsflyer]

... the word was onomatopoedic...
Ron Wanttaja

Now that's a 10 cent word!

[Low Pass]

Ever since Thomas Selfridge became the first person ever killed in an airplane accident, the media has called any airplane accident a "crash". For 110 years it's stuck. I suspect this will continue.

And the word sells papers. It invokes images of carnage, fire, and death. And that's what the average person who might buy a newspaper (or click on an internet article) subconsciously wants to see and read about. Newspapers have been overly dramatic since someone figured out they could make money selling the printed news.

[conodeuce]

Looking at the photos of this aircraft in the Sport Aviation article, I don't see a fuel gauge in the instrument panel (or I am just missing it). Perhaps it's what appears to be a mechanical indicator in this pic (copyright Sport Aviation)?:

http://zoemertech.com//fuel_indicator_maybe.png

[Frank Giger]

An aside here from the wreck, as we don't know enough info, but I do have a question about landing on interstates and roads: why?

We've all seen videos where folks perform emergency landings on Interstates where there is traffic, and I just don't get it, particularly when there is a grass median between them or fields to the sides of it.

In this case the pilot clipped a truck during his landing, which did not help matters and could have been much worse, and wound up on grass next to the interstate. Maybe, just maybe, go for the grass in the first place?

[Bill Berson]

A low wing or biplane would drag in the median grass or roadside. Usually the median is a low ditch.
Side fields might work. Depends on the tire size, etc. I would shoot for an off ramp, if possible.

[conodeuce]

...We've all seen videos where folks perform emergency landings on Interstates where there is traffic, and I just don't get it, particularly when there is a grass median between them or fields to the sides of it. ...

Frank, I have to wonder what I would do in the actual event. A steady diet of takeoff and landings on hard-surfaced runways over most of my twenty-five years of flying probably subconsciously biases me in favor of going for the interstate -- if it were not crowded with traffic. Unlike bush pilots and the pilots in the first part of the 20th century, I suspect that most of us are squeamish about landing on natural terrain.