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THE PILOT OF a Goodyear blimp screamed “I crashed the airship” before it burst into flames, a passenger who leapt to safety says.
Photographer Joachim Storch told media that the blimp — The Spirit of Safety — missed its designated landing spot at Reichelsheim airfield in central Germany on Sunday evening, causing its engine to slam into the ground.
The pilot yelled “We had an accident!” followed by “I crashed the airship!” as the smell of fire crept through the blimp, Storch told the DAPD news agency on Monday.
Storch and two other passengers, a man and woman from a TV crew, leapt 2 metres to safety.
The sudden loss of weight caused the ship to shoot into the air, where it burst into flames, killing the pilot who remained in the cabin.
Germany’s aviation investigator said Tuesday it will need weeks to complete an investigation into the cause of the crash.
“We are conducting interviews with witnesses, gathering evidence from the site and analyzing images of the accident,” said Klaus Himmler, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation. “We are conducting a widespread investigation.”
The bureau’s findings are not expected to be reported for another four to eight weeks, he added.
Goodyear, which had commissioned the blimp as part of a road safety advertising campaign, said in a statement Tuesday that it was halting the initiative and would leave its second airship in Europe grounded.
“Our thoughts and sympathies are with the family and relatives of the pilot,” the company said in a statement.
The United States tire company said it has used blimps for more than 85 years and never previously experienced any fatalities.
- AP
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A day will come when we regard the days of social media dominance in the same way we view smoking in the office and drink driving today. We will look back and think what the f were we at? They are a c4ncer.
@David Clements: So true and sadly a lot of people can’t see the correlation between rising mental health issues and the internet/social media in general. It should really come with a health warning.
All the “moderators” of Facebook are useless anyway. I’ve reported quite a few disturbing things that apparently isn’t against their “standards” (not that they have any), yet someone’s unpopular opinion gets silenced, and you land in Führer Zuckerberg’s jail.
@Dan Skelton: Literally just what i said! its absolutely crazy. You can get banned for basically standing up for yourself. Se x ually explicit bullying is allowed, being called this and that and being told you need a good s** g (i was told this, by a woman, no less) and when i reported her, they said she posted nothing offensive.
@Dan Skelton: I reported a comment just this week where someone said that “Gay people were just the same as Peados” . It didn’t go against their guidelines. I was given the option to have the decision reviewed so I clicked that. They responded that they haven’t time to review it and their decision stands.
@Pauline Gallagher: I called out a homophobe on a sick rant about gay people by asking him if he was gay himself such was his fervent anti gay diatribe and I got a 7 day ban for bullying. You couldn’t make it up. (This comment is getting a 7.2 on the journals toxicometer.)
Maybe then they should spend less time targeting the wrong people for banning from Facebook? I got banned for using a so- called trigger word; i called this much more abusive man ‘a pile’, that was it, thats all i used, and i was banned for 30 days under their draconian bullying harassment laws. The guy in question was accusing me of being homophob ic and all sorts of things just because i raised concerns on an article about unisex bathrooms in a school. You cant say anything these days.
@Pauline Gallagher: On the contrary. You can say pretty much anything you want these days,with any number of platforms to facilitate your soapbox. you’re just not free from consequence of what you say.
@OnlyHereForTheComments: Consequences? I didnt do anything wrong. Youre missing the entire point of what i said.
I deactivated my twitter account recently…. Feels good…
End the internet! It’s just one big platform for advertising! It’s also making society a more closed place.
@Will: “End the internet!”
Steady on! The internet is the greatest thing humanity has invented since the wheel.
Just stay away from unsocial media and you’ll be right.
Farcebook is an absolute joke, the moderation is awful, a friend asked me where I was after posting a photo,I responded “I’d have to kill you if I told you that” followed by a big smile, I got blocked from commenting for 3 days, sad lot, obviously no understand of Irish wit.
Brave lady for doing what she did. That took guts.
@Adele Ryan: steady on, next she’ll tell everyone she’s a man and they’ll put her on the cover of Time Magazine
@Adele Ryan: She literally went through a full recruitment process to get that job. She knew full well what she was signing up for. Why is she moaning about it now. If she doesn’t like the job that she applied for then she should go and look for a job that suits her temperament !
logged off Facebook just over a year ago, best thing I’ve done in a long time, my mental health has improved.
I use twitter but I use an anonymous account.
I got banned from Facebook for saying that Israel was stealing Palestinians houses in Jerusalem and had killed children. Those content moderator are on hair triggers.
have your say