Bride's bouquet brings down plane (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

The traditional throwing of a bride's bouquet for luck ended in disaster at an Italian wedding when the flowers caused a plane to crash.

The bride and groom had hired a small plane to fly past and throw the bouquet to a line of women guests, Corriere della Sera reported.

However, the flowers were sucked into the plane's engine causing it to catch fire and explode.

The aircraft plunged into a hostel. One passenger on the plane was badly hurt.

But about 50 people who had been in the hostel escaped unscathed, as did the pilot.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8149910.stm

:wow:

(My first reaction to the headline was: Just how hard did she throw it?

[LiberalFighter]

1. Would any other pilot had risked such a manuever?

[lapfog_1]

2. According to the report, a passenger on the plane

threw the bouquet.

Still, the whole story smells.

Flowers "sucked" into the engine makes it sound like it was a jet airplane. Most (but not all) propeller airplanes have the engine either at the very front or out on the wings well away from the fuselage. A small jet would have them at the rear or on the wings.

I would have expected this from "The Onion" and not the BBC.

[htuttle]

4. If they threw the bouquet out of a jet

...wouldn't it have hit the crowd at over a hundred miles per hour? (or however fast the jet was moving - air resistance on the way down). Yikes!

And I can't imagine trying to manually drop an object out of a speeding jet and actually hit something wedding-sized on the ground.

[county worker]

6. How do you open a window or door on a speeding jet?

The pilot could open a side window of the flight deck, but I doubt anyone would open the cabin door because it usually swings down and has steps on it, in an executive type jet.

[Tan Gent]

10. Anything as light as flowers would decelerate almost instantly

and fall slowly. "Practice bombing" is a common and fun pastime with small planes...usually involving
small bags of flour and a target on the ground. I think this story is badly reported, probably the bouquet
jammed up a control surface and caused the pilot to mostly lose control.

[county worker]

5. It could have been a plane with a glass nose like an A-26 Invader.

That plane has a door on the bottom of the nose. If you dropped something light enough to be caught in the air rushing past it could go into the engine. It could then have caught on fire and ignited fuel in the engine and wing. Those planes are still in use in many parts of the world as air tankers.

Of course I doubt that is what happened but just saying.

[Dennis Donovan]

3. Um, what kind of aircraft was it?

For the bouquet to be sucked into the engine, causing it to catch fire and explode, I would assume it was a jet of some kind. Of course, that begs the question, "why use a JET?":crazy:

Today's Darwin award winner...:eyes:

[eppur_se_muova]

7. No one died, so not eligible for a Darwin.

(At least that's my understanding. I have been wrong before.)

[lapfog_1]

8. If a small business jet hits the ground, especially a building like

a hostel, someone is going to die. Probably a lot of someones.

[RamboLiberal]

12. Ultralight - earlier thread on this story

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6067815&mesg_id=6067815

[Dennis Donovan]

14. I hadn't considered that...

That doesn't sound so crazy...;)

[lapfog_1]

9. Could this have been an ultralight

slow moving, close to the ground, would be easier for the "passenger" to throw the bouquet at the wedding party, flowers might have been sucked into the carburetor and cause the engine to either die, or possibly catch fire (more like it died and emitted a bunch of smoke from trying to burn flowers). Hits the ground and everyone "walks" away (or lives to tell about it).

Makes a lot more sense than either a Cessna or small business jet.

[Ian David]

11. Imagine if they'd dropped turkeys. n/t

[eppur_se_muova]

13. "As God is my witness ... "

:rofl: thanks for the reminder of a classic comedy!

[timeforpeace]

15. That ultralight looks really cool.