Goodyear... ah,, not a good day...

[funkfool]

Goodyear blimp crashes...
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fo...cke-69143.html

The pilot of one of the famed Goodyear blimps died in Germany over the weekend after the giant airship caught on fire and eventually plummeted to the ground. German newspaper Der Spiegel reports that the pilot is being hailed as a hero after he fought to keep the blimp afloat long enough, and close enough to the ground, to allow his three passengers to jump to safety:

The blimp, part of an advertising campaign for the Goodyear tire company, was about to land at an airfield in Reichelsheim in western Germany when fire broke out in both engines, according to media reports.

Bild newspaper reported that the pilot, an Australian, called out to the passengers: “We’re having a crash!” and told them to jump out of the cabin, which was hovering just 2 meters (6.6 feet) above the ground at the time. As soon as they had hurled themselves to safety, the airship soared rapidly to a height of around 50 meters, possibly due to the sudden loss of weight in the cabin, making it impossible for the pilot to escape, eyewitnesses said.

The blimp then became engulfed in flames and fell back to the ground in a ball of fire. The passengers were a press photographer and a TV crew who had been on a two-and-a-half-hour round trip to get aerial shots of a public festival.

The Daily Mail has some of the photos:

[Guylee]

That's really sad...

[Irving]

That picture sure makes it look higher than only 50 meters in the air.

[spyder]

That is sad. I wonder why they wouldn't pack parachutes in something like that?