Posted on 07/29/2009 9:52:53 AM PDT by kenth
Umm … where am I supposed to land this thing?
A ham-fisted pilot from Virginia nearly caused a major disaster at Kennedy Airport when he brought his single-engine plane down for a landing in the path of a Boeing 747, sending controllers scrambling to get other planes out of his way, according to a published report.
Hundreds of lives were threatened over the weekend as small-towner John Prendergast la-dee-da-ed his way around the sky trying to figure out where on earth Republic Airport in Long Island was, reports The New York Post.
"I don't know what he's doing – he's going everywhere," gasped an air controller as he radioed passenger jets to tell them to steer clear of an "unknown aircraft."
Dazed and confused, Prendergast made a few 360-degree turns near Kennedy before he finally figured out where he was supposed to be (not where he was, naturally) – and was guided to the Farmingdale airport by an NYPD chopper sent to get him out of the way, according to the Post.
The 69-year-old retired Navy pilot failed to make radio contact with controllers, which he should have done, after taking off Saturday morning from an airport in Martinsburg, Va.
Piloting a two-seat RV-7A experimental plane he built himself, Prendergast made his way up the Jersey Shore, nearing New York. He had planned to fly over water to Robert Moses State Park, then go north and west to Republic, but he somehow ended up farther west on Long Island, flying just east of Kennedy, according to the Post.
Then, to the shock of air traffic controllers, the blundering pilot flew farther north and turned around as if he were going to land with the passenger jets on Kennedy Runway 22L. A Boeing 747 on its way to New York from Atlanta actually flew over Prendergast's small plane at one point and had to abandon its landing, the Post reported.
Oops.
Prendergast hasn't been charged with anything, but the Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident. He couldn't be reached for comment yesterday, the Post reported.
surprised they didn’t shoot him down. course, they didn’t do that to Air Force One when it “wandered over the city.”
What an a hole
This is why we’ll never have our own flying cars.
Regrettably, it sounds as though he is one brick short of a load. I hope it’s a temporary condition.
Retired Navy pilots don’t do this type of thing intentionally.
I suspect hospitilization, testing for dementia, and pulling his medical certificate might be in order.
At least
Let’s see now....Piper Cub vs 747-400.Which one will get the worse end of the deal?
Exactly. I first remember seeing the flying car stuff on the covers of Popular Mechanics, etc, when I was a kid in the 1950's. I somehow recognized even then that having many thousands of doofus non-pilots flying to the city for work each morning was a recipe for dozens and dozens of daily crashes and disasters. It's one of those blue sky ideas that refuses to die, and is totally impractical.
Testing for dementia? In the history of Navy aviation is that the SOP for every navigational error made? And there probably is no medical issue, certainly no mention that he was confused or anything. It’ just a guy flying VFR in an area he was unfamiliar with.
Minor issue, and the system worked well to warn JFK traffic of a hazard. He will probably get some sort of the FAA equivalent of a traffic citation.
Flying car covers sold that magazine a lot better than circuit drawings and gear diagrams would.
Not a good piece of airspace to get lost in. I would expect that even though this was probably an accident, he’s going to lose his license for a while. Stumbling into Class B airspace without contacting ATC is pretty serious business, isn’t it?
}:-)4
Can you imagine that same “little old lady” coming straight at you with a closing speed of 120 mph. All the time you are hoping that she will keep her 4000# missile on her side of the double yellow line.
Oh, by the way, she’s on her cellphone.
PS An RV-7 cruises at close to the landing speed of a 747.
The pilot was lost, should have been under positive control (ATC) and knew better.
I don’t know of any pilots who do this type of thing intentionally. Unless he was flying as a sport pilot, which I don’t believe the aircraft mentioned was eligible, he would have had to have had a Class 3 medical in the previous 12 months. They will catch most disqualifying health problems, but no test is 100%. My gut reaction is when he took off he was fine, then maybe had a stroke or some type of event during the flight. This is actually rare, but it does happen. The fact that he seemed “confused” is a clue. From the tone of the article, it would seem the reporter is a little anxious to rush to judgment. Let’s get all the facts first. This man may have done everything right - and had an unfortunate medical event. All of us are human and sometimes we break.-—JM
My favorite was the "Thompson Flier" an aluminum disk about three feet in diameter with a lawn mower engine powering a propeller situated in the middle, and the prop underneath. You held the throttle in your hand and flew the thing by standing over the engine. The only picture of the thing actually flying was over water. I wonder why? Talk about a death wish.
I haven’t flown in a private airplane for 30 years and I’ll bet that nav/comm equipment has improved considerably since then — surely by now GPS navigation systems are affordable for private aviation.
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