I saw this on Dateline. I felt bad, but I almost died laughing.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-an...e7293.html
The article fails to mention that the reason she crashed was because she put in an extra zero into her GPS coordinates which instead of taking her Northwest, it took her Southwest into a really deep mountain range.
The dateline video had a small camera phone video of her freak out. Listening to the whole story was painful. Her flight instructor shouldn't be instructing.
TL;DR Girl flying on her first solo flight enters GPS coordinates incorrectly, flies into mountain range, and crashes in a remote area with zero cell service.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-an...e7293.html
Quote:Quote:
McKenzie Morgan, 17, walked away nearly unscathed after crashing a small plane high in the mountains near Meeteetse, Wyo., — not far from the cabin of famed pilot Amelia Earhart — during her first solo flight Tuesday night.
She was flying a Cessna 172 as part of a multi-city training flight out of Laurel ahead of getting her private pilot’s license. She was supposed to return to Laurel on Tuesday afternoon; instead she crashed near Francs Peak, which is the highest point in the Absaroka Range at 13,153 feet above sea level.
Earhart’s cabin sits in the shadow of Mount Sniffel, near the crash site.
After leaving Greybull, Wyo., Morgan became disoriented and started flying in almost the opposite direction of where she needed to be going, she said Wednesday night.
“I kept flying and then I got into some really rugged terrain, like, there are mountains on both sides of me,” Morgan said. “I thought I was going to get speared by trees because I was supposed to be flying at 7,500 (feet). I was now at 8,500 and climbing just to stay above everything.”
The article fails to mention that the reason she crashed was because she put in an extra zero into her GPS coordinates which instead of taking her Northwest, it took her Southwest into a really deep mountain range.
The dateline video had a small camera phone video of her freak out. Listening to the whole story was painful. Her flight instructor shouldn't be instructing.
TL;DR Girl flying on her first solo flight enters GPS coordinates incorrectly, flies into mountain range, and crashes in a remote area with zero cell service.