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hydraulicpalmtree
9th Feb 2000, 22:19
I copied this verbatim from the Electronic Telegraph today. Copy writer could do with locking up as well . . .

A MAN who tried to steal a police helicopter was put on probation yesterday. Police found Gareth Ieuan Roberts, 30, was found sitting in the pilot's seat of a £2 million EC135 Eurocopter at the North Wales Police air support unit base at Bodelwyddan, Clwyd. He had switched on the helicopter's rotas.

Warrington Crown Court was told that on the previous day, last Oct 14, Roberts had felt suicidal and took a drugs overdose. When he saw the helicopter landing at the base he thought, on a whim, that he could end his life by flying the machine into the sea.

Keith Sutton, defending, said that Roberts did not have the ability to fly the aircraft but he convinced himself he could do so because he had been playing on a computer simulator and had an HND in electronic engineering. Roberts, of Hightown, Wrexham, was put on probation for two years on condition that he co-operated with the mental health services.

syd_rapac
9th Feb 2000, 23:31
This one is from memory but the details should be on the accident database. In Oz we had a situation that developed a lot further than the EC135. Two young individuals under the affluence of incohol manged to get into a Jetranger in a fenced security compound. Somehow they managed to get it lit off without an engine meltdown and got it light on the skids. At this stage one of them chickened out and got out. Unfortunately his mate didn't have the disc under control and as he left the cabin,managed to tilt the disc onto him. If I recall the machine then rolled on it's side.
Very nasty but then the security on a Jetranger is really good....isn't it. The only problem with all these computer games is that they really don't simulate how easy it is to die from doing something so stupid.