Joe is just jealous. ;)

Yes-duhh- this is what makes latenight shows perpetual.

you're right there. I had a 12E Hiller that a guy walked into the tail rotor and got killed. Previous owner had that bad luck, not me. I was getting ready to take off in a Jetranger when my ground crew started pointing at me. I had no idea what was going on, I unstrapped and got out. An old lady was walking up behind me and holding her straw hat down, I grabbed her about 5 feet from getting it between the eyes. Till this day I can't figure out why they didn't run back and get her to safety. When you're a pilot you have to assume people know nothing about an aircraft and really watch out for them.

Ahh, Dr Phil, I mean Joe, has been married to a blonde and has first hand experience with the way they act... Not sure about Dave but I sure do. Not all are dizzy types but sure are enough of them that way to support the jokes floating around! :)

After the 11 years it took to get the divorce paperwork completed... Nope! :)

+1

Why was she allowed out of the aircraft with a spinning prop at night?

I hate spurious lawsuits, but I think her case is legit.

Of my hair. :p

EDIT: I actually prefer blondes, Joe. :)

I do as well but thats another story.

Some day Mr. Dave, I will show you a photo of me and my hair when I was younger. It was longer than yours, down to the middle of my back and thick as can be...

Times change and when you get to be an old fart like me, just wait... :)

Joe, unless you have a really long back - and I've see it... My hair is past my waist. :D

Bending over backwards to make your hair look longer is cheating...

Haha! ;)

This.

Hell yeah. My stroke was $250K.

I read the same article, I think they speculated accurately, at least it makes sense to me. Not the thanking part though. I think she could not wait to make a cell phone call, or was using her phone to take a picture of the plane for her blog, and got a little too close.

I have a serious question for the group. I am genuinely curious about the answer.

It seems that there are three schools of thought on the model suing for damages. One group thinks that she shouldn't be able to sue at all and should receive nothing from the pilot because the accident was clearly her fault. The second school of thought is that the pilot may have responsibility for the model's accident, and should pay for any of the damages the model suffered to the extent that the damages were caused by the pilot, and that this including medical bills, pain and suffering, and lost income. The third group thinks that she should receive compensation for her medical bills only because the accident was mostly or completely her fault.

My question is this: If you think that the pilot is not at fault for the model's accident, and therefore think she shouldn't get money damages for her injuries, why do you think she should get paid her medical bills?

If he caused her injuries, shouldn't he be responsible to pay all damages? If the pilot was faultless for the accident, why should he have to pay anything, including medical bills?

I am not up to your level of knowledge on law, but I do have opinions.

She was flying with a commercial concern, for hire. There has to be an expectation of safety, including entry and exit into the air vehicle.

It is clear they were doing a switch of passengers on the ramp, a difficult evolution, especially at night.

In my mind, it is negligence: Not the right procedures, not enough people on the ground to help. I'd get their SOP and review it. If they don't have one, huge issue.

I did a tour as a Air Boss on a ship. Flight Ops at night was a hump and had me beeping at a high frequency. And all my young men were well trained and motivated.

Passenger transfers were the worst.

The insurer of the aircraft already agreed to pay $200k of her medical bills but $200k is the limit on that particular policy for a passenger. It would be a tough call to make, especially since I didn't see it happen, but I don't think the limits were high enough onthis policy. It seems when things go wrong in general aviation they go really wrong.

Joe - I understand that she did not obey the pilot (like any woman ever obeys a man) however my personal opinion is that it was negligent for the pilot to let her disembark from a small, single engine plane with the spinney thing going.

I know that some turbine operators really hate to shut down because of the cool-off requirement between starts. Heck... one of our pilots was trying to talk me in to hot-refueling the jetranger recently because he didn't want to shut it down. (I think the "are you out of your damn mind" comment cleared it up for him.)

I also know that Part 91 tour operators are not required to have the level of procedures, staff, etc, as a full charter operation does.

I'm not saying that her injuries are his fault, but I think it would have been prudent to shut-down before allowing her to deplane.

Could you expand on that? Very interesting.

According to the NTSB report it was a private pilot in an Aviat Husky registered to Shell if that helps clear up anything.

CEN12LA125