Plane Crash
Jonathan Leber
Audio: 911 call for help from Lake MichiganPosted on 04/26/2005 7:11:36 PM PDT by Jean S
A 20-year-old ministry student's rented single-engine plane ran out of gas and went down in Lake Michigan about five miles offshore, prompting him to make a frantic 911 call from his cell phone pleading for help.
| Plane Crash |
|
Jonathan Leber |
| 911 call |
| Audio: 911 call for help from Lake Michigan |
Rescue crews in boats, helicopters and planes spent much of Tuesday searching the choppy waters for Jonathan Leber before calling off the search late in the afternoon.
Leber told a dispatcher he had no flotation device and was planning to swim to shore.
"I need any help real fast," Leber of Springfield, Va., said in the call shortly before midnight Monday.
"My plane's going down real fast," he added as the dispatcher asked him questions.
He said, "I'm in the water" before the water could be heard in the background and the call cut off.
The Coast Guard estimated Leber could survive in the 44-degree water for about four hours, Lt.j.g. Boris Montasky said. Investigators don't believe the plane floated for long.
Leber, who was preparing for the ministry at Maranatha Baptist Bible College in Watertown, was flying west across the lake when he radioed he was low on fuel, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.
He ditched his plane in the lake a short time later.
Leber was flying under visual flight rules and was not required to file a flight plan, Cory said.
"He had gone for the weekend to New York. He had stopped in Michigan Sunday and was coming back from Michigan," said Darryl Sturgill, assistant to the college's president.
Leber had rented the plane from Wisconsin Aviation Four Lakes Inc. of Madison.
"It's tragic," said Jeff Baum, the company's president. "He was a young man with a promising life."
The National Transportation Safety Board would investigate the crash. The search included Coast Guard boats and helicopters, a C-130 plane from the Canadian Coast Guard and boats from the Milwaukee Police and Fire Departments.
Coast Guard Lt. Rolando Hernandez said the search would not resume unless investigators had new information that would lead them to think Leber could be alive.
Complete coverage of this story will appear online later tonight and in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in the morning.
That is true.
I live in the Rocky Mountains, and one of the things my instructor taught me, Is: Don't fly over something you don't want to walk out of.
I think that applies here also.
It shouldn't be a death sentance for making a mistake, but it can be. That is why you must pass you instrument check ride with no mistakes at all. One mistake and you fail the check ride.
You then have to study and practice until you can do it perfectly and can answer all the oral questions perfectly.
One minor mistake can kill you in all types of flying.
I am sorry, I thought this was a forum for intelligent discourse, but it seems that I have run into the captain of the self-righteous police.
Thanks for mentioning the audio clip. I listened to it and you are right, there is something strange about how calm he is and how when he hit the water there was no sounds of impact, and he was not shaken by the experience of hitting at about 50 MPH or more.
The second thing is the horrible mis-communication going on during the exchange. Nearly every line had to be repeated at least 4 times, twice by each person. What a complete F.U.
Uhm... some people might think it self-righteous of someone to assert that they would never make the mistake that cost this young man his life.
I'm just sayin'... :-)
PRAYERS UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have a friend who is attending Maranatha. Prayers for this yourng man.
Not to be crass, but every pilot knows they cannot make the mistakes that cost others their life.
If they had or if they do they are dead.
You will not ever hear a pilot say "I made the same mistake". He would be dead and not able to say anything.
Quite so.
I am finished with this one. I've said my piece and gotten nowhere... so I'm outta here.
Niters all...
You can often glide to a field, or a road ('tho there you have the possibility of hard-to-see wires across the road).
Pilots tend to be non-emotional when in trouble, and small-planes do not normally have flotation devices (such as seat cushions), unless flying over large bodies of water (but perhaps L. Michigan qualifies here).
LOL. I've been called a lot of things but that's a new one. I'm bookmarking this.
What, and deprive people from getting their sanctimonious self-rightous kicks? How dare you!
Heh. Well and truly said. :-)
I'd love to know where the civility and decency that use to be on this forum has gone.
I take it that the audio tape began after the crash and impact with the water. Again, what was this guy doing with his avcom radio prior to impact? Listening to top 40 tunes? There are many things that present more questions, than there are answers.
It is a given that any pilot who made a fatal mistake such as this, will not post a defense here.
It is "unfair" that a pilot making minor or major mistakes can wind up dead. I agree with that, so how does that change anything.
They should just pass a law that minor mistakes cannot kill pilots. Yeah that would do it.....
[rummaging pockets] I've got it here somewhere... I just had it... I know its here somewhere...
:-)
It's been stolen and/or trampled to death.
Heartbreaking, indeed. Prayers and condolences for family and friends.
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