Champion ditches off Cape Cod; spectacular photo

[wideman]

A banner-tower, described in a news article as a 1962 Champion, went into the water off a beach near Hyannis MA (Cape Cod) yesterday.
The Boston Globe had an amazing photo of the craft as it hit the water:
http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2006/08/06/1154850848_7715.jpg
Unlikely as it seems from the photo, the pilot walked ... er, swam ... away and was uninjured.
While the Globe bought the good picture, the best reporting was from the Cape Cod Times:
http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/planecrashes6.htm

[Runaway Gun]

Great to see that nobody was hurt. However, my favourite bits:

"No one was hurt, though many on Kalmus Beach were traumatized."

"For those on the beach, the shock wore off slowly."

and finally...

"My friend was just about to cast, and the plane came just a couple of feet above his pole,'' Dunlevy said. ''When I first saw it, I thought it would hit the jetty and explode.''

[Chimbu chuckles]

Mine was this.After it landed, ''we turned around and about 500 people were running toward us ... If it hit the jetty, it would have been tragic,'' Lunedei added. ''We could have died.''

Why is the gene pool so awash with morons?