Authorities have spent two days searching for a crashed helicopter
Columbia, Missouri based on a 911 call. Here are some details from a TV
station’s story:
He told the dispatcher his name was Larry Bishop and they were flying from North Carolina to Kansas City.
He also said there were six others on board and the pilot was dead.
Towards the end of the conversation Larry repeatedly said he could
not feel his feet. Just before the phone line went dead, he was calling
out a female’s name.
This is a very strange incident. From RDU to Kansas City is nearly 800
nautical miles, well beyond the range of any helicopter ever
manufactured. You’d probably have to make two refueling stops to make
it from North Carolina to Kansas City, an all-day ordeal at the
sluggish cruising speeds of even the most expensive helicopters
(pushing into a typical west-to-east headwing slowing the machine down
even further). Anyone rich enough to charter a helicopter would be rich
enough to charter a jet or turboprop instead and fly non-stop in a tiny
fraction of the time.
A helicopter that can carry 7 people is at least a $2 million machine
that requires a substantial support crew. One of them would very likely
have noticed the pilots’ failure to report arriving in Kansas City.
Anyone who can afford to charter a $2 million, $1000/hour helicopter
ought to be someone with, if not a lot of friends, at least a lot of
dependants. You’d think one of them would have noticed his boss’s
disappearance.
If this story proves to be true it will be almost as amazing as the
U.S. Navy’s failure to notice the sinking of the 1,100-person cruiser
Indianapolis during World War II (see the book In Harm’s Way).
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