Coincidence?
 

Pilots run out of fuel, pray, land near Jesus sign
Men able to glide powerless microlight to a safe landing on grassy strip
The Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - It seemed like an almost literal answer to their prayers. When two New Zealand pilots ran out of fuel in a microlight airplane they offered prayers and were able to make an emergency landing in a field — coming to rest right next to a sign reading, "Jesus is Lord."

Grant Stubbs and Owen Wilson, both from the town of Blenheim on the country's South Island, were flying up the sloping valley of Pelorus Sound when the engine spluttered, coughed and died.

"My friend and I are both Christians so our immediate reaction in a life-threatening situation was to ask for God's help," Stubbs told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

He said he prayed during the ill-fated flight Sunday that the tiny craft would get over the top of a ridge and that they would find a landing site that was not too steep — or in the nearby sea.

Wilson said that the pair would have been in deep trouble if the fuel had run out five minutes earlier.

"If it had to run out, that was the place to be," he said. "There was an instantaneous answer to prayer as we crossed the ridge and there was an airfield — I didn't know it existed till then."

After Wilson glided the powerless craft to a landing on the grassy strip, the pair noticed they were beside a 20-foot-tall sign that read, "Jesus is Lord — The Bible."

"When we saw that, we started laughing," Stubbs said.

Nearby residents provided them with gas to fly the home-built plane back to base.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Voodoo.

Marie Laveaux had a wonderful sense of irony.

They should have prayed to God earlier to give them enough brains to calculate fuel usage...

+1000

Idiots! There is a fuel gauge on most airplanes and if that fails we have a good idea how much it burns every hour.

These idiots need to get a job driving a rubbish truck and stay out of the air, no matter how strong their faith is.

LOL! Too true!

- altitude above you
- runway behind you
- air in the tanks
- idiots in the cockpit

The most useless things in flying.

Pure, unadulterated coincidence, of course.

The End is Coming!

True, true...

that is true only if they would have hit the cross and been killed, wait that would be irony, you are right.

sounds like a couple of idiots that were lucky to have survived to adulthood to me

Engine out in two stroke ultralights is not too uncommon. Hell, every time I fly mine I am always keeping my eye on spots on the ground to land if it quits. This is non story IMO. I have had mine only quit once (seized engine due to poor jetting) and was over my runway and it was a non-event. "Modern" ultralights are much better than the "flying lawn chairs" of the 80's but good pilots even in certified aircraft, should always be aware of whats below should the engine go tits up for whatever reason.

I think it depends on your point of view. I would bet the two occupants of that plane would call that event hard, concrete evidence of an intervention from God directly into this world. Folks who don't believe in God would call it a coincidence...

They might surely have a stronger belief now. Assuming some deity did save them, then one must ask why the deity hasn't saved thousand of thousands of other folks who were probably praying quite vigorously as their planes went down. Why these guys?

I know, "God works in mysterious ways" or "God has a plan".

Not very convincing, IMO.

I think you may also find a large number of "believers" don't believe in the "active god" angle, but I could certainly be wrong.

Best,

Kstarnes, you and Shaun need to get together and talk. You both seem to envision God as some sort of Superman who swoops in and saves everyone right before the train derails...

But hey, whatever it takes for you to discount the evidence.

Rick:

Forgive me if I assumed too much, but it seemed like you were claiming that perhaps the landing of the plane near the Jesus sign was a sign of divine intervention?

What did I miss?

And, where's the "evidence"?

I didn't claim anything. I simply posted the story and asked if it was a coincidence. It isn't surprising that you claimed that it was.

I also am just pointing out that I would bet those two people felt it WAS divine intervention on the scale of the Burning Bush that you say would be proof enough for you. As expected, you immediately catagorized it as coincidence. If there was truly a burning bush you probably would say it was some spontaneous ignition due to a solar flare.

Call it what you want, the two guys lost power, were going down with no where to land and did not know the immediate area. They prayed for a landing area and flew over the next mountain and were presented with one. Then when they touched down it was next to a sign that says Jesus is Lord.

Coincidence or intervention? I already know your answer.

You are right, I did assume your position was that it was a sign of divine intervention, but you didn't claim it was.

Rick said:
And I'm not sure if I ever claimed that a burning bush would be proof enough for me that a God existed. I would certainly not assume it was "God", but I would be quick to conclude that it was simply a bush on fire in light of no other contradicting evidence. Now, if a voice was coming from the bush and there was no reasonable explanation, that would be something! :)

Assuming the story is just as was stated in the article, my conclusion is coincidence. If suddenly prayers started getting addressed much more frequently than what one would expect from pure chance occurrences, then that would be something else. :) So far, that's simply not happening. I would sincerely listen to a reasonable dissenting argument that doesn't state "God works in mysterious ways."

What do you think happened with the two guys in the plane? Coincidence or divine intervention?

Best,

Oh, maybe I got you confused with Shaun. One or the other of you said that if there was a burning bush then that would be proof for you...Old Testament style stuff.

Anyhow, I don't know if it was coincidence or not, I would probably defer to the people who were there. It could just be coincidence of course, it could be a miracle. Who knows.

I will concede it could have been divine intervention, I have no way of proving otherwise.

But, my opinion is strongly slanted towards what is most probable, IMO, all things considered -> coincidence.

I pray neither one of those morons has kids.

#1 check list item. Fuel Whats God have to do with it? Proves that it's better to be lucky than good.

It already came. Weren't you paying attention?