A charity swim off the Florida Keys took a dangerous turn last week as personnel from the U.S. Coast Guard, the local sheriff’s department, and a helicopter operated by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) spotted a fast-moving boat aimed directly at the swimmers. The helicopter crew is credited with swift, heroic flying in heading off the boat seconds before it reached the swimmers.
I like how in the Venn diagram of requirements between flying a car and owning a speed boat the only overlap is “have money”. No license, no ridiculously expensive training, no practical test standards, no periodic review with an instructor, no medical requirements, just money. Much like flying, the sea is known to not suffer fools kindly, yet any yahoo with enough cash or a good enough credit score can buy a fast boat, hitch it up to his brand new king cab pickup truck, put it in the water, ignore the cops, and just point it at full speed straight for some swimmers. Teenagers have more responsibility put on them when learning to drive.
All that won’t help. After all, there are still many many drunk driving accidents ocurring. This isn’t an issue of training. Unless you consider teaching respect and consequences to children part of it.
This idiot needs to buy that helicopter crew a round at their favorite bar. They kept him from being sent up for a much longer time on manslaughter charges. However, I very much doubt he feels grateful this morning.
Here are USCG 2020 boating statistics and as you might guess major causal factors to fatalities and injuries include inexperience, inattention, excessive speed, alcohol, etc. This incident checks many of those boxes.
And stoopids race water bombers on pickup run.
Ontario cracked down several years ago.
On Sproat Lake BC Coulson Aviation stopped telling people when they would have the Martin Mars out testing because of boaters. One taxi run was halted because of a fool boater. It does seem someone curbed fools after that was publicised, testing continued and the Hawaii Mars took off on its journey to YYJ…
For arrival of Hawaii Mars into Patricia Bay at YYJ there was patrolling of a defined perimeter of the area needed for it to land regardless of wind direction and current.
People who like seeing airplanes fly might look for videos of the final flight of Hawaii Mars, over YYJ and Victoria BC in formation with the Snowbirds aerial demonstration team that zipped over from closing the big airshow at Abbotsford BC.
Documentaries will be published including air-to-air photography.
(Hawaii Mars took a long route down much of the coast of Vancouver Island, the Snowbirds joined her late in that journey, flying over YYJ, around Victoria BC, then back over YYJ.)
Her Majesty is now at the BC Aviation Museum at YYJ, you can look at the outside now, later this month you may be able to get inside.
Not quite sure what your fixation with money, here, is. Any skipper, monied or not, can do stupid things especially when under the influence of drugs.
And what difference would insane levels of bureaucracy make? The captain of the Costa Concordia, MS Herald of Free Enterprise and hundreds of other vessels have come to grief through the recklessness or stupidity of their captains and they are some of the most highly trained and supervised seafarers out there.
I think the point worthy of most merit in this story (and on a much more positive note) is the actions of the helicopter pilot who pretty evidently prevented a serious incident.
