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Old 11-26-2002, 12:46 PM   #4
MaggieL
in the Hour of Scampering
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Jeffersonville PA (15 mi NW of Philadelphia)
Posts: 4,060
"No more calls, we have a winner." Somehow having a picture makes an urban legend easier to believe.

<blockquote>
When Good Airplanes Go Bad
...it's usually the owner's fault. This is not the way to make headlines at AVweb, folks. A pilot who hand-propped a Piper Saratoga at Adelaide's Parafield Airport apparently failed to make sure the aircraft was adequately restrained either by chocks or brakes. Shortly after developing power, the Piper started taxiing without the pilot and made a beeline for some of its kindred aircraft parked nearby on the ramp. The Saratoga ploughed through four Piper Warriors before a twin-engine Piper Seminole finally stopped the offending relative by mere bulk. No humans were injured in the accident, but damage from the resulting slice and dice is estimated at $1.5 million. (The Seminole looks like a Chinese paper yo-yo.) All but the marauding aircraft belonged to the University of South Australia's flying school. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is investigating. In an unrelated incident the same day, a Piper Arrow landed safely at the airport but overran the end of the runway and ended up in the mud. Maybe it was just bad karma for Pipers at Parafield.
http://www.avweb.com/newswire/news0135b.html
</blockquote>

Hand-propping a Saratoga...it boggles the mind.

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"Neither can his Mind be thought to be in Tune,whose words do jarre; nor his reason In frame, whose sentence is preposterous..."

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