No Full Plane Parachute? No Problem

A Cessna 182 crashed Friday after departing Thun Field, Wash., when the aircraft reportedly lost power and the pilot tried to turn back for the runway -- a move that often puts pilots in a world of ... excrement. Things were no different in this case, but as fate would have it, that world may be exactly what saved the pilot from substantial injury. The aircraft fell short of the runway, clipped a fence and flipped upside-down into a stand of porta-potties. Fortunately for the pilot, the portable toilets had what it took to absorb or dissipate the remaining kinetic energy of the crash and the pilot "walked away apparently unhurt," according to the Associated Press. Fortunately for everyone else (including, we assume, the NTSB), the porta-potties were not deployed in service at the time, but were sitting idle and empty (we pray, of everything) in a storage yard.

A local Sheriff's spokesman said the aircraft had gained about 150 feet before the engine quit. Further details were not available at the time AVweb went to press and the pilot's identity was graciously not made available.

Dads90 wrote:
I bet he used one, after he climbed out of that plane.