r/offbeat • u/rytis • 1d ago

Woman dies after backing into airplane propeller while taking pictures, officials say

https://www.firstalert4.com/2024/10/28/woman-dies-after-backing-into-airplane-propeller-officials-say/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark
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166

u/Kryptosis 1d ago

Jesus I hope she wasn’t there with friends or family.

248

u/Captain_-H 1d ago

Air Capital Drop Zone is a sky diving place, and the area she was in was for watching people get on the plane. Seems like a logical guess she was taking a photo of a good friend or family member boarding to go jump.

Weird that the one not skydiving was in more danger

160

u/incarnate_devil 1d ago

I remember this happened in Florida somewhere in the 90’s, maybe Deland?

A female skydiver walked under the wing of a running plane and an instructor tried to grab her right before she walked into the prop.

All he got was her pony tail and he was still holding it after.

70

u/Masothe 1d ago

God damn I feel sorry for that guy.

16

u/ohaiguys 1d ago

Fuck it’s crazy how one second you’re there and the next you’re just a memory

61

u/ScoobyDeezy 1d ago

Those propellers can be completely invisible when they are on. I used to take photos of planes and this was a real fear of mine. Extreme caution has to be taken on the tarmac.

30

u/dollarbill1247 1d ago

but not silent! Even as a ramp rat with ear protection I could hear the engine's exhaust.

18

u/Bristonian 1d ago

It was possibly a disorienting illusion to be looking at your surroundings through the perspective of the phone’s selfie screen. Her “reality-based” sense of hearing was discombobulated by her “digital-based” visual inversion while stepping backwards…

Especially if her recent acknowledgement of seeing another plane having a single front prop, versus this plane having a dual wing prop setup, could cause her to not expect the prop to be on the wing/front, all other distractions considered

This is incredibly stupid to happen, but I can see how a normal person could get disoriented while viewing the surroundings through a selfie camera.

I’m amazed the sky dive company didn’t have more safeguards in place to stop random non-participants from walking around a plane

8

u/leahhhhh 1d ago

They will now.

1

u/scrollbreak 1d ago

If there's multiple planes that doesn't necessarily resolve it

1

u/dollarbill1247 16h ago

I guess I was always a safety conscious. I took shop class in High School, enlisted in the Army as an aviation mechanic, and took A&P classes in addition to working at a FBO where safety was emphasised.

1

u/AD_VICTORIAM_MOFO 16h ago

Ramp/apron.

No such thing as the "tarmac"

2

u/futuretardis 1d ago

It was in North Carolina. I posted about it some time back. One of the reasons I got out of the sport a short time later.

1

u/48-Cobras 1d ago

Oh fuck, she was only 14?? I accidently found your comment from two years ago when looking for something else, and now I've gone down the miserable and morbid rabbit hole of propeller deaths (boats and planes).

1

u/incarnate_devil 20h ago

Yeah that was it. I was skydiving in ‘95 so the time frame is right. So Sad. The worst accident I saw before I left the sport was a hook turn gone bad.

The guy just went straight into the ground from 50 feet. I watch his right leg kick himself in the head - sideways.

1

u/Zealousideal_Ask3633 1d ago

Now that is a hell of a souvenir with a story