Gary Schenk wrote:Dingus Milktoast wrote:It seems to me load dumping is always a possibility when flying cargo planes into the mountains.
If a plane develped engine problems over a crowded civilian area and was going down, and the pilot elected to steer the thing away from disaster rather than get out (assuming that's even an option) we would likely hail this guy as a hero for trying to save people at the cost of his or her own life.
That can, does and has happened, to military pilots, for example. It will happen again.... a pilot will steer himself to death to try to keep his plane from crashing into innocents.
So load dumping is always a possibility so long as flying occurs. What we have to ask ourselves is this.... is it reasonable to expect a fire fighter pilot to seriously risk his or her life to avoid dumping that orange shit?
Would you expect a pilot to die to avoid dousing the Needles, for example?
I'm guessing that deep down, no matter how offensive this dumping may be to any of you, the answer is in reality, NO. No you would not expect a pilot to sacrifice her own life to avoid dumping retardant on the Needles.
The only alternative I can envision is simply not making the flights. I'm ok with that but a majority of my countrymen are not.
Whaddaya gonna do?
DMT
The question is, as Kris pointed out earlier, if they were in such dire straits that they had to dump cargo, why would they be flying OVER a peak?
Yeah, that's why it looks fishy. Had it been some random "splat" that would be one thing, but this dumping looks designed.
