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Banner plane collides with parasail carrying 2 young boys

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NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) - The sign from a banner plane ripped through two parasailers' parachute last weekend, forcing them to make an emergency landing. The parasailing pair are brothers who were visiting from Virginia for the Fourth of July. Their fun took a turn for the worse when one of the boys saw the plane coming straight towards them. The two boys went out with the North Myrtle Beach Parasailing crew. As they were up in the air, they noticed the plane flying very close to… (www.wfsb.com) More...

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Bernie20910
Bernie20910 1
200' vertical separation simply isn't enough to ensure safety. And, just on a personal note, i never did like banner plane advertising. I find it intrusive and annoying when I'm at the beach trying to relax. Oh, and I can't think of a single thing I've ever seen advertised on those banners that I later bought, visited or tried.
bbabis
bbabis 1
I agree with you Bernie based on the way they are probably doing things now. I am not familiar with either operation but it probably goes something like this. The parasail operation just feeds out line saying "that looks about 300ft" because they want to get you higher than anybody else. And then a banner tow pilot setting a barometric altimeter to the setting of the time, which could be very low, and flying at 500ft not knowing how far the banner hangs below the plane. This would be a recipe for disaster. Done another way, 200ft would be plenty, if during simultaneous operations, the parasail boats were limited to 300ft total line deployment and banner tow pilots set their altimeters to 0ft before takeoff and flew no lower than 500ft + the length of the tow. In this case you would have a minimum of 200ft even if the parasail was directly over the boat, the banner hung straight down from the tow plane, and they passed directly over one another. All highly unlikely as you can imagine.
bbabis
bbabis 4
Thank God there was only shaken nerves. Safety rules exist for safety. One or both operations broke their respective altitude rules or this couldn't have happen. Learn the lesson now or pay a terrible price later.
rking25
Richard King 1
Headline is a little misleading. It was the banner plane's banner and not the plane itself that collided (at least that's what the story says). Not too sure who's at fault on this one but interesting none the less.

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