Doofus Of The Day #974

Today’s award goes to the pilot of a French Canadair CL-415 fire-fighting aircraft, who didn’t pay enough attention to his course while refilling his tanks with water.  This happened on the Rhone river in Nimes, France, a few days ago.

That’ll cost a fair amount to repair the wing, and the barge . . . not to mention the laundry bills for the crew’s underwear!

Peter

6 comments

  1. Wow! His partner didn't leave him enough room to clear, and I'm betting there was a 'conversation' later…

  2. They probably won't bother with cleaning that underwear.

    Are these single pilot planes? Even though the first plane was farther out, seems the second had the responsibility of staying clear of that barge and the shoreline. Lucky he didn't take someone's head off.

  3. @LindaG – afaik the French, Italian and Crotatians fly these aircraft fly these aircraft with a two man crew, sometimes augmented by aan observer/flight egineer/ load master

  4. @lindaG – look at the very first second of the video – you can see that the rear aircraft has some roll attitude (left wing low), as it contacts the water

    i think the real reason for this happend in the seconds before the video starts – i think old NFT is correct in his interpretation and he was cut off by his wing leader .. it might also be that he spotted something i the water (debris? that might really have ruined his day) and needed to get clear

    it still might have been better to call a go around before starting to scoop, but i am not sure they can abort a scooping easily

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