Distracted by a plane on the runway? What did he expect?
My husband and I owned a flight operation at JWA for 25 years and this is just plain stupid. The guy is a doofus. He could just as easily have plowed into the hangar rows which are adjacent to the taxiway - one of which is where we had our flight operation.
Why would he have a Temporary Airman Certificate? That’s what the FAA issues when a person takes a check ride/passes it and before their permanent certificate is issued. Did he say he lost his pilot certificate? I can’t believe he’d gone for another rating that would have resulted in a Temporary Certificate.
Actually, he said on the phone call to the tower that he'd lost his airman certificate, which I took to mean he'd misplaced it and was waiting for the replacement to arrive.
Amazing the amount of pilot knowledge here. That is why I have been posting Ford threads
Btw...he had just recently had a medical checkup before incident.