Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: deSelys on August 02, 2006, 07:40:21 AM
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Young, calm, staring death into the face (http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/young-calm-staring-death-in-the-face/2006/08/02/1154198184485.html)
Robert Cook & Blue Skies
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> RIP
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A true heroic action!
RIP
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It is a surprising community, it is something I expect from the two trainers I jumped with.
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Selfless indeed. The story is incomplete and I hesitate to ask but...
Sounds like they had "some" time there, what happened to the plane and why was a (crash) landing not attempted?
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There are still a lot of dark zones in the chronology of the events but, according to the first witness reports, it looks like 10-30 seconds elapsed between the loss of the engine and the crash.
It is unclear what happened to the plane: some say that it clipped a power line, some say that the open jump door (on the left) acted as an airbrake after the loss of the right engine because the propwash entered into the fuselage and some say that the light load required a different pilot action than the loss of an engine at full load (don't ask me why, I'm not a pilot).
Pilot error can't be ruled out (too high AOA making the plane uncontrollable on a single engine?) but it appears that the power loss occured right after takeoff and that the pilot had very few time to react.
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Wow. What an act of heroism. If only more people would be like him while living their lives.
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Cruel that people like that have to die. People like that make the world a place worth living in. So sad but a real hero.
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Link won't open for me, can someone paste the text?
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Originally posted by Maverick
Link won't open for me, can someone paste the text?
Young, calm, staring death in the face
Email Print Normal font Large font Thumbs up from a young hero ... Robert with his father, Mark, on one of his 1700 jumps in five years.
What [Robert] did was slip her into his lap and hooked up her harness and then told her that on the impact that he would take most of the impactLatest related coverage
Skydiver's bravery saves Aussie's life
Video: Skydiver's gallant act
Advertisement
AdvertisementJano Gibson
August 2, 2006 - 12:36PM
A young skydiving instructor who saved the life of an Australian woman by embracing her as their plane nosedived and crashed into a tree was someone who "would sacrifice anything for anybody else".
"That's the way Robert was. He would sacrifice anything for anybody else. That was just his nature. He was probably one of the best kids you could ever meet," Robert Cook's distraught father, Mark, told smh.com.au today.
His son was one of six skydivers killed when their plane fell from the sky shortly after take-off on Saturday.
"Robert was loved by everyone and will be greatly missed."
The 22-year-old, who had accumulated more than 1700 jumps over five years, has been hailed a hero after he calmly told his skydiving trainee, Melbourne woman Kimberley Dear, that their plane was about to crash and he needed to embrace her so he could take the full force of the impact.
Kimberley, who works in the United States at a camp for children with disabilities, was one of only two people to survive the accident.
She remains in a serious condition in a Missouri hospital with pressured vertebrae, severe muscle tears around her spine, a broken pelvis and collar bone, many cuts and abrasions, concussion and severe bruising.
"What [Robert] did was slip her into his lap and hooked up her harness and then told her that on the impact that he would take most of the impact," Mr Cook said.
He said he had spoken by phone to Kimberley's father, Bill, who plans to attend Robert's funeral on Thursday.
"As [Bill] was standing next to [Kimberley's] bed today, he looked over to her as she was sleeping and he said she is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen and that she is only here now because of Robert," Mr Cook said.
"He wants to come down for the funeral and explain to everybody at that time exactly what Robert did for her and if it hadn't have been for Robert she wouldn't have been here today."
Mr Cook, who was trained to skydive by his son, recalled times when the two of them would joke with new skydiving students about his son's character.
"We'd be walking out to the airplane [and] he'd have a first-time tandem student. I'd always say something like, 'Your parole officer called today,' or, 'Did you take your anti-psychotic drugs today?' We would go back and forth and have the students laughing."
He said skydiving was his son's true passion and that his son had decided to extend his university engineering studies so that he could skydive as much as possible.
"As long as he was in college, he could still skydive full time. If he had to go to work he wouldn't be able to skydive full time."
" He was a wonderful child and he will be greatly missed."
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Thanks Rip.
More proof that even in today's world there are still those who embody that which characterized those known as "the greatest generation". Bravery, self sacrifice and compassion for others still exists.
RIP and
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Got teary-eyed on that one. God bless him.
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We need more men like that.
J_A_B
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A brave and selfless young man. At least his family can reflect with pride on his courage and self-sacrifice. I hope it helps...
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a brave and selfless act ,my thoughts to his family .
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Sadly, some couldnt wait to sue....
Family Of Skydiver Lost In Sullivan Accident Sues
Fri, 04 Aug '06
Says P&W, Skydiving Company, Airport Responsible For Daughter's Death
The National Transportation Safety Board has yet to issue its preliminary report on last Saturday's accident involving a skydiving plane near Sullivan, MO... but that doesn't mean the lawyers are waiting to assign blame.
The parents of Victoria Delacroix, 22 -- who perished in the accident, along with five others -- filed a lawsuit Thursday claiming negligence led one of the DeHavilland DHC-6's engines to fail, leading to the accident.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports Vivian and Susan Delacroix of Kent, England, are suing engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney; Quantum Leap Skydiving Center; Adventure Aviation, owner of the accident aircraft; and Sullivan Regional Airport, which serviced the plane -- saying all are responsible for the death of their daughter.
"Our initial investigation points to a right engine failure just after takeoff," said Gary C. Robb, a Kansas City attorney representing the family. Witnesses say the plane's right engine burst into flames moments after the plane took off, Robb added.
As Aero-News reported, the DHC-6 went down in a residential area shortly after takeoff from the airport on a planned skydiving mission. There were only two survivors of the accident.
Calls by the Post-Dispatch to Quantum Leap and the city of Sullivan -- which owns the airport -- were not returned. A spokesperson with Pratt & Whitney also declined to comment, stating it corporate policy not to discuss incidents still under investigation.
Robb, apparently, does not share that sentiment.
"There were some of the most experienced skydivers in the world on that plane, and not even they could jump from that altitude," Robb said.
Source (http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=95bd69f0-4353-4370-875a-677f417c8d6b&)
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Funny how the FAA and other agencies haven't even gotten started good on the investigation, but the lawyer has already reached his conclusions.
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it's strange, but having jumped only once, it seems a natural thing for someone who is taking on such a massive responsibility for another human life in the first place.
great job kid.
you did good.