Martha King involved in airplane crash

ScottM

ScottM

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An ultralight plane crashed into Lake Shasta in front of the Sugar-
loaf Marina near Lakeshore Drive south of Lakehead on Wednesday afternoon.
The pilot, Dennis Chitwood, 54, of Lakehead, was not injured, said Gary Van Dyne, a deputy with Shasta County Sheriff's Department's boating safety unit.
Chitwood's passenger, Martha King, 61, of San Diego had a minor bruise on her wrist, but she declined medical treatment, he said.
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http://redding.com/news/2007/apr/05/two-ok-after-lake-shasta-plane-crash/



Glad she is ok but no word on her how her hair looked after being removed from the lake. But I'll bet it was not damaged in the incident.
 
A two person ultralight? I thought those had to be re-classified as light sport and ultralights were now (again) strictly single seat.
 
GaryO said:
A two person ultralight? I thought those had to be re-classified as light sport and ultralights were now (again) strictly single seat.
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How much you wanna bet Martha's working on getting a Light Sport Instructor rating.

She has all the rest.
 
I talked to Martha King at AirVenture 2006. She could not have been nicer.
I am glad that she is okay!:blueplane:
ApacheBob
 
I'm not so hot on making fun of people for crashing....especially since the Ultralight is presumed destroyed. Imagine all the hard work that went down the tubes.

Poor guy.
 
bqmassey said:
What makes you think this is THE Martha King?
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Well, the city is right, and the age seems plausible. Only One Martha King in San Diego comes up in the FAA database, and it is THE Martha King.
 
mikea said:
How much you wanna bet Martha's working on getting a Light Sport Instructor rating.

She has all the rest.
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Do you need LSA on an instructor certification if you already have airplane?
 
SkyHog said:
I'm not so hot on making fun of people for crashing....especially since the Ultralight is presumed destroyed. Imagine all the hard work that went down the tubes.

Poor guy.
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I doubt that there's much damage. It may require nothing more than drying out the engine and fuel supply to get back in the air. I've "crashed" delta wing kites into water more than once with virtually no damage. Of course the ones I flew were towed by a boat so there was no powertrain, but I expect the most serious damage potential would have been the prop hitting the water while the engine was making power.

I read Martha's explanation and the message between the lines is that she applied control force in the opposite direction than she intended. This is a significant difference between weight shift and movable surface control. In a trike like she was flying, to increase AOA you push on the control bar, to roll right you push left. And once your brain and nervous system have adapted to "normal" control inputs it can be very difficult to override that adaptation, especially when a quick reaction is warranted.
 
I am glad she is OK. Wouldn't wish that on anyone. Now she can get on with the business of narcoleptic video production.:D
 
I just heard from Martha. She says the season hasn't started yet, and so the rescue squad and newspaper reporter et al jumped at having something to do. She says it really wasn't that big a deal.
 
Ken Ibold said:
She says it really wasn't that big a deal.
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That depends on how "anti-general aviation" the reporter is. Most pick such an event to slam the sport of us wealthy, privileged, private pilots.

I am glad she's ok. The King's have been great ambassadors of GA regardless of how much some of us may pick on them for the corny jokes and training video productions.
 
I like Martha Stewart, too.
Maybe I have a Martha fetish? :D
 
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