So here I am, middle of the NT, sitting in the office and willing the phone to ring 'cause it's been a few days since I've flown a charter. Eventually it does, but instead of delivering me a booking, I am treated to an encounter that was nothing less than astounding.
It's a pair of ultra light pilots who came into town for fuel and needed a lift back out to the airfield. No problem, it's happened before and I'm happy to oblige. I jump in the van and I'm met by two older gentlemen in front of the service station, and they hop in. One is carrying his fuel, the other has grass and dirt all over him and is looking a little flustered. Just happy to see some different faces, I pay it little attention and off we go.
Seconds into the drive, one of the pilots asks if I can drop him off at the police station so he can report his accident. Assuming he was refering to a car accident, I asked him what happened.
Now this is the atounding bit.
These two guys are inbound, and very mindful of the fact that the surrounding airspace is about to become restricted down to ground level, due to high speed jet traffic associated with Pitch Black exercises. They are also mindful of the fact that the strip is about 2 miles out of town, and assuming they didn't have a suitable mobile phone, were going to have to hike it back. I'm not sure what one had to do with the other, but it lead one of them to make a very poor decision, as it turned out.
Deciding the walk was too far, one of these guys ignored his mate, who had continued to the strip, and decided it would be a better idea to land on the road leading into town, and taxi his bird right up to the unleaded bowser!
If that decision wasn't bad enough, his choice of landing spot was. On a blind curve, on a piece of road frequently occupied by everything from 4WD's towing caravans to road trains, underneath power lines and in front of a police station. Now, Murphys law hadn't caught up with this bloke yet and he managed to set it down without killing himself or anyone else, and began the relatively simple task, absurd as it sounds, of taxing his aircraft to the local BP.
Alas, it was at this stage the laws of probability finally caught up with our intrepid pilot. Approaching a bridge over a dry creek, his left wing clipped a water level sign, skewering him to the left, into and over the guard rail of the bridge and down a 10 meter drop to the dry river bed below, where his aircraft finally came to rest, although now in two or three pieces. Thankfully he wasn't hurt.
Unbelieveable.
Now I know, there but for the grace of god go us all, but please, that one has got to take the cake. Perhaps an early nomination for the Darwinian awards...
