Flying Objects
On November 23rd, Troy McCormick was flying Wings Air Rescue helicopter into Storm Lake Hospital for a patient. He was lining the helicopter up for a landing and going about 80 miles per hour. The Air controller had said, “Climb up over the top of the wind towers and then made the approach to the hospital,” pilot Troy McCormick said, “and just about that time, ‘Wham!’ The bird came through the windscreen and hit me right in the side of the head here, ‘boom,’ and then exploded all over in the inside of the aircraft.” McCormick, the pilot of the flight, was hit by what he believes was a duck. McCormick said the details are fuzzy. “Knocked me out for a little bit I think,” he said. “I don’t remember some of the information about what all happened. I remembered [a fellow crew member] talking to me a little bit, telling me what we needed to do, and we did that.” McCormick was covered in blood and feathers, but thankfully wasn’t permanently injured by the incident. However, the helicopter was another story.
“We’re canceling the mission,” said a radio transmission from the incident. “Will you make other arrangements for the patient? We hit a bird. We’re diverting to the Storm Lake airport.” “This window [had a] great big hole in the middle of it,” McCormick said. “This aircraft was full of bird guts and feathers and broken glass.” We were able to land at the airport safely.” McCormick has been flying since 2001 and joined Wings Air Rescue roughly a year ago. He said this was a freak accident. “It’s not very common,” McCormick said. “Now we do have to look out for birds all of the time and we do dodge birds once in a while. Almost two weeks later, McCormick and his co-workers find the absurdity of the incident to be funny, and are even teasing their fellow pilot about his encounter with the duck. McCormick said he’s lucky he wasn’t injured or worse. “I’m grateful, super thankful,” he said, “because it definitely could’ve ended differently. I see a lot of the hand of God in how things played out.” McCormick’s first day back to work, he said he’s excited to be back in the sky continuing to save lives, and will hopefully avoid any birds.
You may have heard the Spirit airlines has been having trouble getting their planes in the air and getting them to follow any schedule. Spirit airlines got a lot of publicity during the Thanksgiving holiday rush as the airline most people wanted to avoid. A Spirit airlines passenger named Brandon Brooks sparked worried looks galore after he was spotted wearing a parachute coming aboard a flight with many viewers joking that it was a smart move given the seemingly chaos-prone budget carrier. “You know if they managed to open the door everybody be fighting for that parachute,” declared one armchair traveler. Many joked that Brandon was prepared to pull the ripcord should any shenanigans break out aboard the budget carrier. Brandon’s wife kind of calmed the passengers when she explained “My husband was bringing his rig to Miami so he could go skydiving there.” “I thought people understood humor, but the comments said otherwise.”
Flying object funnies
“Welcome aboard Southwest Flight 245 to Tampa. To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt, and if you don’t know how to operate one, you probably shouldn’t be out in public unsupervised.”
“In the event that this flight becomes a cruise, all of you lucky people get your own itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, yellow polka dot bikinis beneath your seat—minus the itsy bitsy, teeny weeny, and you get no polka dots…The beautiful bikini is equipped with a water-activated light. How in the world that works, I have no idea, so if you figure it out, please do let me know.”
I saw a Steve Jobs doppelganger on a Spirit airlines flight today.
You could say that he was there, in Spirit. “Weather at our destination is fifty degrees with some broken clouds, but we’ll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Southwest Airlines.”
Yesterday at Penn Station, Amtrak accidentally sent over 200 passengers to the wrong platform and an Acela train headed for Washington without them. Even Spirit Airlines was impressed.
December 11th Birthdays
1947 – Terry Garr, 1944 – Brenda Lee, 1986 – Karla Souza, 1931 – Rita Moreno
1918 – Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1939 – David Gates, 1980 – Rider Strong