Originally Posted by
BEagle
The late RFK, that well-known northern Irish WIWOL, aimed his Lightning out to sea when he had to part company with it off Valley...
...after first dialling up Dublin ILS and aiming the autopilot towards it!
I remember that incident. I read at time the Lightning ditched just 30 miles short of Dublin. That's pretty close.
As for avoiding people on the ground. If the pilot is staying with the aeroplane he'll always want to land in the nice field next to the school rather than the school itself. So yes he avoided the school and anything else designed to make a bad day even worse.