Originally Posted by
aa777888
Is it? Where do you want to draw the line?
- Leaving the ground in the first place is dumb.
- Doing it in a helicopter is even more dangerous.
- Doing it to take photos is even more dangerous, there are alternatives that are safer for humans (drones).
- Letting the great unwashed--er--untrained up in a helicopter to do this, even more dangerous.
- Taking the door off to get better photos: more dangerous still.
- Flying over water to do it, even more dangerous.
We do these things all of the time and don't even bat an eye. Par for the course. Standard stuff. And it could just as easily happened otherwise.
Somebody moves their purse, or bag, or camera, and a strap snags the fuel control. Float doesn't inflate. People could still drown.
- Letting people stick their feet out of the door while all of the above happens: seems like not that much greater a leap. Unnecessary, yes, but so is all of the above.
It's the sh*tty harness rigging that should be focused on, not the shoe selfies themselves. If these folks had properly rigged harnesses the results would have been little different than a "regular" photo/sightseeing flight gone similarly awry.
Without those ridiculous shoe selfies there would be no need for special harnesses to keep joe tourist from falling out,...would there?
You want to take people up to do ridiculously stupid things. Fine, just have your clients sign a waiver stating that what they are about to do is incredibly stupid and if they die while doing it they (the clients) take full responsibility.