External links
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
W Mitchell (born April 11, 1943) is an American motivational speaker and businessman. He is a former member of the United States Marine Corps, burn victim, paraplegic, and a former small-town mayor.
Mitchell was born William John Schiff III. He subsequently changed his name to W Mitchell in honor of his stepfather, Luke Mitchell.
At the time of his first injury, Mitchell was a gripman on a cable car route in San Francisco. After his burn accident and recovery, Mitchell completed his training as a pilot and in 1975 co-founded a company called Vermont Castings along with Murray Howell and Duncan Syme. The company made energy-efficient wood-burning stoves and was later valued at $65 million. It was on a business trip for this company where Mitchell injured his spinal cord. In 1977 he was elected Mayor of Crested Butte, Colorado, where he stopped AMAX (now Freeport-McMoRan) [1] from building a billion-dollar molybdenum mine on Mount Emmons. Because of the anticipated environmental impact, Mitchell claims that he "saved a mountain."
Mitchell lectures are often titled "Taking Responsibility For Change". [2] His message often paraphrases the quote of Epictetus: "It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."
Mitchell was burned over 65% of his body on July 19, 1971, when a laundry truck turned in front of the motorcycle he was riding in San Francisco. His face and hands were badly scarred and his fingers were badly burned and he lost most of each of his ten fingers. He had just completed his first solo aircraft flight. He later won a $500,000 settlement in a lawsuit against Honda Inc. because the gas cap on his Honda CB750 was deemed faulty for having fallen off during the accident.
On November 11, 1975, he crashed on takeoff in a small aircraft he was piloting due to ice on the wings and injured his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down, but his other passengers escaped injury. The NTSB investigation indicated that the accident was due to his failure to detect the thin layer of ice on the wings during his pre-flight inspection.
Mitchell is a millionaire and he lives in Santa Barbara, California and maintains a second home in Hawaii.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
The Ramstein air show disaster occurred on Sunday, 28 August 1988 during the Flugtag '88 airshow at USAF Ramstein Air Base near Kaiserslautern, West Germany. Three aircraft of the Italian Air Force display team collided during their display, crashing to the ground in front of a crowd of about 300,000 people. There were 70 fatalities, and 346 spectators sustained serious injuries in the resulting explosion and fire. Hundreds more had minor injuries. At the time, it was the deadliest air show accident in history until a 2002 crash at the Sknyliv air show that killed 77.
The Sknyliv air show disaster occurred on Saturday, 27 July 2002, when a Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27UB piloted by Volodymyr Toponar and co-piloted by Yuriy Yegorov crashed during an aerobatics presentation at Sknyliv airfield near Lviv, Ukraine. The accident killed 77 people and injured 543, 100 of whom were hospitalized. It is the deadliest air show accident in history.
Jessica Whitney Dubroff was a seven-year-old American trainee pilot who died while attempting to become the youngest person to fly a light aircraft across the United States. On day two of her quest, the Cessna 177B Cardinal single-engine aircraft, piloted by her flight instructor, Joe Reid, crashed during a rainstorm immediately after takeoff from Cheyenne Regional Airport in Cheyenne, Wyoming, killing Dubroff, her 57-year-old father Lloyd Dubroff, and Reid.
Air Florida Flight 90 was a scheduled U.S. domestic passenger flight operated by Air Florida from Washington National Airport to Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport, with an intermediate stopover at Tampa International Airport. On January 13, 1982, the Boeing 737-222 registered as N62AF crashed into the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River just after take off from Washington National Airport.
Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 751 was a regularly scheduled Scandinavian Airlines passenger flight from Stockholm, Sweden, to Warsaw, Poland, via Copenhagen, Denmark. On 27 December 1991, a McDonnell Douglas MD-81 operating the flight, registration OY-KHO, piloted by Danish Captain Stefan G. Rasmussen (44) and Swedish first officer Ulf Cedermark (34), both experienced pilots with 8,000 and 3,000 flight hours, respectively, was forced to make an emergency landing in a field near Gottröra, Sweden. Ice had collected on the wings' inner roots before takeoff, broke off, and was ingested into the engines as the aircraft became airborne on takeoff, ultimately disabling both engines. All 129 passengers and crew aboard survived.
USAir Flight 405 was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight between LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York City, New York, and Cleveland, Ohio. On March 22, 1992, a USAir Fokker F28, registration N485US, flying the route, crashed in poor weather in a partially inverted position in Flushing Bay, shortly after liftoff from LaGuardia. The undercarriage lifted off from the runway, but the airplane failed to gain lift, flying only several meters above the ground. The aircraft then veered off the runway and hit several obstructions before coming to rest in Flushing Bay, just beyond the end of the runway. Of the 51 people on board, 27 were killed, including the captain and a member of the cabin crew.
Miracle Landing is a 1990 American made-for-television drama film based on an in-flight accident aboard Aloha Airlines Flight 243 that occurred in April 1988. The Boeing 737-200 was flying from Hilo, Hawaii to Honolulu, Hawaii, when it experienced rapid decompression when a section of the fuselage was torn away. With one flight attendant blown from the cabin to her death and 65 others injured, the aircraft was able to make a successful emergency landing at Kahului Airport, on Maui.
Air Ontario Flight 1363 was a scheduled Air Ontario passenger flight which crashed near Dryden, Ontario, on 10 March 1989 shortly after takeoff from Dryden Regional Airport. The aircraft was a Fokker F28-1000 Fellowship twin jet. It crashed after only 49 seconds because it was not able to attain sufficient altitude to clear the trees beyond the end of the runway, due to ice and snow on the wings.
Continental Airlines Flight 1404 was a Continental Airlines flight from Denver International Airport in Denver, Colorado, to George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas. On the evening of December 20, 2008, the flight crashed while taking off from Denver, resulting in two critical injuries, 36 noncritical injuries, and a hull loss of the Boeing 737-524 aircraft.
Turkish Airlines Flight 301 was a passenger flight operated by a Fokker F28-1000 Fellowship of Turkish Airlines registered as TC-JAO that crashed during takeoff at İzmir Cumaovası Airport on 26 January 1974 while en route to Istanbul Yeşilköy Airport (IST/LTBA), killing 67 of its 73 passengers and crew.
Iran Air Flight 277 was a scheduled Iran Air flight from Mehrabad International Airport, Tehran to Urmia, Iran. On January 9, 2011, the Boeing 727 serving the flight crashed after an aborted approach to Urmia Airport in poor weather. Of the 105 people on board, 78 were killed. The official investigation concluded that icing conditions and incorrect engine management by the crew led to a double engine flame-out, loss of altitude and impact with the ground.
The 1946 Railway Air Services Dakota crash was the crash of a Douglas Dakota 3 of the British airline Railway Air Services 1 km north-east of Northolt Airport, London, United Kingdom on 19 December 1946.
Bek Air Flight 2100 was a domestic passenger flight from Almaty to Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, operated by a Fokker 100 that crashed on 27 December 2019 while taking off from Almaty International Airport. Of the 98 people on board – 93 passengers and five crew, 13 died in the crash and 66 were injured. The Kazakhstani government started investigations on the same day.
The 1952 Luqa Avro Lancaster crash was a military aviation accident that occurred in Malta on 30 December 1952 when an Avro Lancaster bomber crashed shortly after takeoff from RAF Luqa into a residential area in Luqa. Three of the four crew members on board the aircraft and a civilian on the ground were killed. The crash also caused extensive property damage. The cause of the crash was engine failure.
The crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 60 was an accident involving a Boeing 727-81 of the American airline Alaska Airlines at Ketchikan International Airport in Ketchikan, Alaska, United States, on April 5, 1976, resulting in the death of a passenger with 32 serious and 17 minor injured survivors among the initial 50 passengers and crew on board.
