Plane Flies For Two Hours With [half] Wing Missing (with pic)

Western Daily Press [Ireland] ^ | 8/19/2005 | unknown

[sionnsar]

A Dozy pilot flew his plane for two hours before he noticed that five-and-a-half feet of one wing had been torn off by a tree on take-off. The Irish pilot told investigators he thought he had been "struck by a little bird" on takeoff in his five-seater Cessna 210.

But despite two of the three passengers being top flight engineers on their way to fix a Boeing 767, no one noticed that half the left wing, containing one fuel tank, was missing. The unnamed pilot was forced to make an emergency landing at Jersey International Airport two hours later after he finally spotted the fuel gauge plummeting towards empty.

The drama unfolded as the Cessna took off from Brittas House Airstrip, 18 miles east of Shannon in Ireland last Friday.

As the small aircraft - bound for Lisbon in Portugal - left the runway it collided with treetops which ripped off a 5ft 7ins section of the left wing. The fuel tank was later found on the ground - back in Ireland.

Jersey International Airport was alerted and air traffic controllers guided the damaged plane to safety.

A spokesman for the airport said: "We were amazed it had managed to fly as long as it had, it was in a real state when it came in.

"The pilot was the most shocked of us all as he had not realised the extent of the damage while he was flying."

[Publius6961]

All right. I give up. I keep seeing this pic on all the aviation threads and have no clue what it is.
The closest I can come to is a 707 doing a loop?

Help me out here...

[Publius6961]

Can't be real. That geometry is impossible. at least three points on the wings and fuselage would hit the ground before the wheels contact the ground.

[Textide]

Thanks for asking. I have no clue either. Just looks like a jet engine oddly mounted on either the wing or the tail.

[HairOfTheDog]

The Irish pilot told investigators he thought he had been "struck by a little bird" on takeoff in his five-seater Cessna 210...As the small aircraft...left the runway it collided with treetops which ripped off a 5ft 7ins section of the left wing. The fuel tank was later found on the ground - back in Ireland.

It's a great advertisement for the Cessna 210.... not a real proud moment for the pilot or the 3 skilled flight engineers who didn't notice when it hit a tree.

I wonder how many cocoas they had at lunch!

[Paleo Conservative]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_707

[Publius6961]

Thank you. I was close, LOL

[My2Cents]

I'd keep looking to make sure the ground was under me.

[Tennessee_Bob]

Say, ever hear of that munitions guy that fired off a round when trying to clear a jam. . .on the ramp at Bentwaters?

Never heard of that one - but wouldn't be surprised. I remember an incident at one of the eastern bases when they did an engine swap on a 16. The young female mechanic that signed off on the installation and rigging of the throttle hadn't done what she was supposed to do - she attached the throttle rig, but didn't have the fuel control locked into shutoff - it was in full augmentor instead - and her boyfriend the nine-level signed off on the job without checking the rigging. Another troop climbs into the cockpit, and fires it up for the ground run, the aircraft starts, rolls immediately into full burner, and screams off across the parking ramp, and taxiway and into the dirt. Every mechanic in the force hobbed hell for that one - had to do three inspections before it left the shop to insure that we had locked the fuel control into cutoff.

[Gunrunner2]

Good Lord. . .what a story.

The munitions incident had to do with unauthorized tool being used to pull back some firring pin type of thing to clear a 30MM jam and the tool either broke or slipped, striking the round and the round torched off, hitting the ground about 700 feet in front of the barrel and ending up striking an SP bunker.

[Colosis]

Good grief! Didn't hear anything about this even though I live in the area! Thanks for the heads up ;)

[Tennessee_Bob]

Yeah - got a lot of maintenance stories - stuff that I got to see - makes me leary of getting on a civilian jet. No problem getting on a military jet - we have a lot of checks and balances. But the civilian aircraft - that's another story.

[Dashing Dasher]

For once and for ALL....
Tex Johnson Rolls a Boeing 707... watch the video....
Go there, bookmark it, share it with your friends...

http://www.orizzle.com/htm/v/020.htm

[Dashing Dasher]

See previous post with URL for video.

[Irish_Thatcherite]

As Colosis said, I heard nothing about this - all I heard today was that a fire engine somehow got stranded on a beach!

[Monkey Face]

This is just what I needed!
LOL!

Thanks!




(How could they fly that far without looking out the window to the wings...???)

[Irish_Thatcherite]

Between Undead members, I think this story could possibly be BS, I heard nothing about it!

[Monkey Face]

LOL!

Well, I don't know about the BS, but unless they were flying with blindfolds, it would be hard to miss a wing that wasn't there.

[Prince Charles]

A Dozy pilot flew his plane for two hours before he noticed that five-and-a-half feet of one wing had been torn off by a tree on take-off.

His license should be revoked immediately.

[19th LA Inf]

I used to fly with rudder only a lot of the time

I had a 1941 Culver Cadet (low wing, retractable, 85 hp). It had a bench seat, very cozy for two people, and when I flew solo I found that I could hold a heading pretty well by sitting in the center and occasionally trimming by sliding myself one way or the other. Wonderful little plane in the air, but a devil waiting to cause trouble on the ground.

[duckandcover]

Sure it looks bad.

But wait 'til ya see what I did to that BIRD!!!