#6 wasn't fatal...

True or false?...

Charlie wrote on Jul 31^st, 2007 at 11:19am:


How could that one not have been fatal? There's only a few metres between the plane and the ground and one of the wings is gone. There's no way the pilot could have righted that bird. It would have smashed upside-down onto the tarmac and the pilot would have been crushed.

I'll be seriously impressed at the structural integrity of that plane if the pilot managed to live through the inevitable resulting crash.

UTSUNOMIYA -- A Russian pilot is struggling for his life after being seriously injured when his airplane crashed Friday during a practice run for an acrobatic flight competition, police said.

The Sukhoi Su-26 plane of Alexandre Krotov, the 35-year-old pilot, lost balance after its left wing apparently clipped a light pole during a practice run for a low-altitude flight competition as part of the three-day "Aerobatics Japan Grand Prix" that kicked off Friday.

The Russian pilot's propeller plane was destroyed when it hit the ground at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit in Motegi, Tochigi Prefecture, police officers said.

Krotov, who was rendered unconscious in the crash, was flying only 7 meters off the ground at the time.

About 2,000 spectators were present in the circuit, but none of them were injured in the incident.

Aircraft accident investigators from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport will visit the site to look into the accident. (Compiled from Mainichi and wire stories, Japan, Oct. 31, 2003)