Man lands plane on golf course so son wouldn't be late for tennis lesson
Police might arrest an Illinois man who landed his plane on a golf course so his son wouldn't be late for a tennis lesson.
Police came to the Marriott Resort Crane's Landing Golf Course, at 10 Marriott Dr. in Lincolnshire, around 1:50 p.m. Saturday for a call that a plane had landed on the course.LinkRobert Kadera of Lake Villa and his 14-year-old son, Isaac, were standing outside the aircraft, a 1949 Piper Clipper, which was sitting in the middle of the golf course about 20 feet south of the retaining wall that separates the golf course from Route 22, police said.
Kadera said it was not an emergency landing, but rather, the boy was late for his tennis lesson at the Lincolnshire Club across the street from the golf course on Route 22, police said.
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Perhaps he simply confused "Crane's Landing" for "Plane's Landing?"
What sense of privilage is this? Sounds like Royalty to me. I would like to see Little Richy Rich work with the green's keeper on the golf course all summer long. That'll show him.
It's easy to hate because it wreaks of pomposity, but I think that's pretty cool. We need more people breaking the rules--landing planes on golf courses, driving cars across baseball fields, swimming in public fountains. More fun.
Seems like much ado about nothing to me, other than the unfortunate detail that the plane was leaking fuel onto the course. I can't get very worked up about a few ski tracks worth of "harm" done to a snow-covered resort golf course owned by an international hospitality corporation.
Sounds like a story from the by-gone days of aviation!
Kinda cool, but still pretty wacky.
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Sounds like a story from the by-gone days of aviation!
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very true, but also very dumb. That was a time when there were far fewer people in the sky. allowing things like this to happen in a situation when it is necessary is allowable, but for something like this the father should lose his license to fly or atleast have it suspended for a year. Next we'll be seeing some dude do this because his wife really needed to go to the bathroom.
"I told you to go before we left! ARGH!!!!"
Not enough information. Was the pilot pompus? Was the kid really spoiled? Did he know the owners of the golf course? Did the owners press charges?
#3: We are already overloaded with examples of how the world is the playground of the rich. I don't see what's so fun about setting the example for your kid that rules only apply to certain (lesser) people.
This was a rich on rich crime, so why is it getting so much publicity?
@ KENEKE:
Dude, they have their own plane, which the father landed on a golf course because his son was late for tennis lessons. What about this story does not scream "wealth and privilege" to you? The rich really are different than us...
I'm guessing daddy's going to be getting a rather unpleasant letter from the FAA shortly.
This is a person who does not make good decisions. He shouldn't be allowed to fly and he probably shouldn't be allowed to drive. Reminds of AbFab though so it kind of funny. Definitely something that Edina would do.
ยง 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General.
(b) Over congested areas. Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft.
Here's to you, douche pilot.
leaking fuel on a golf course? Hah! Golf courses pump tons of toxins into the land every year. They should all be banned.
Raspberries!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-6g929abIrs
Get the kid a parachute. Problem solved.
He should've given the brat a parachute and pushed him out the door... ;-)
To quote Steve B. from the WTOP.com news forum:
"This guy really got ticked off when some guy landed his hellicopter on the tennis court his kid was playing on in order to go play golf."
\priceless
Isaac is the youngest of 10 children. Don't bother with the parachute.
rich kid lawn darts?
That's incredibly stupid. I suppose we should be glad he wasn't driving. He probably would have run red lights and killed somebody.
Truthfully now, just how dangerous was it? A 49 Piper was built to land in wheat fields. People have grown up with airports and jets, it's like trying to explain to someone what it was like to say, go scuba diving before licences were invented.
Sure, this guys probably a jerk - probably. But maybe this isn't much of a deal in the real world.
It took him three tries to land.
I used to work at a fancy restaurant. During the 1980 presidential campaigns, the owner of Amway Corp arrived in his helicopter for a GOP fundraiser featuring Gerald Ford. He landed in the restaurant's gravel overflow parking lot where employees were compelled to park, peppering every one of our cars with bits of flying rock. When we complained about the damage, our boss just sneered.
Not all wealthy people are assholes, but wealth brings unprecedented opportunities for assholishness.
only three? I guess he was using one hand
#15: Hah! Golf courses pump tons of toxins into the land every year. They should all be banned.
I'm glad everything is pretty much run by rich white guys, and not by you. Your way doesn't sound like much fun.
I've flown a few times in an old Piper, though it was a '65 Cherokee. That '49 Clipper probably has a stall speed just above a brisk walk. Into the wind, a skilled pilot could probably land that on the tennis court itself, in bounds. This pilot's a reckless showoff, and he's about to be a grounded one.
@ #25 ROSSINDETROIT, "assholishness" just sounds wrong, for some reason. I would go with "assholiness" - it sounds more Papal.
:D
@27
let me guess, you're a pilot?
all golfers are emissaries of Satan
"According to the National Golf Courses, an industry association, there are approximately 16,000 golf courses in the United States, with between 150 to 400 new courses opening every year since 1990.
Pesticides are applied to golf courses at higher concentrations per acre than almost any other type of land, including farmland, and there are concerns that their extensive use could contaminate waterways and damage neighboring communities and wildlife."
oh,and @25;
next time toss a handful of chopped pop cans into he air as they take off. With luck, a turbine will gobble some. Do remember to duck behind something concrete.
@30
Nope, I'm not even a golfer.
@32: It must be nice when every problem you face can be solved by damaging property or banning something. Got a newsletter?
damn, now i can't get this song out of my head...
Have to catch an early train
Got to be to work by nine
And if I had an air-o-plane
I still couldn't make it on time
I know this family. I went to high school with one of his sons and we used to skateboard together. This family is NOT rich, whatever you may think. They were crazy hardcore catholics, hence the 10 kids (contraception not allowed) and Mr Kadera was a total dictator in the house. The kind of guy who leads his children to a life of libertine dissipation out of spite for his bullshit.
Ah. So you're saying that Isaac should have pushed his father out of the plane.
Yep;
TSA Monthly, The Journal of Creative Fondling
RossInDetroit 25: I certainly hope your boss's car did not escape unscathed...or that if it did, you all rectified that problem in the days that followed.
Compulsive 36: Ah. So this is Kadera being selfish to the point of psychosis, and teaching his kid to be. I doubt even a jail sentence for reckless endangerment would straighten him out, then.
My late father in law had a light plane when his kids were small. An Aircoupe or Aercoupe or something like that. I'll have to ask my wife if he ever did anything fun/irresponsible in it. I'm betting on 'yes'. For the record, they and we were also middle class. Private planes are or were not all that uncommon in the Midwest, especially outside of large metropolitan areas.
Xopher, just for the record, who do you see as having been "recklessly endangered" by this action? I guess you could make an argument that it was dangerous for the father and son to land on a non-approved runway, but it definitely doesn't look there was anyone on the golf course who would have been at risk . . .
Can I sign up for the middle class where I have a private plane instead of the middle class where I drive a 1987 Accord?
Uninformed jabber about situations like this make my bowels loose. I write as a retired airline pilot with about 23,000 flying hours, and 32 years experience. 18 of those years were spent flying in 'bush' operations in Alaska. Any reasonably experienced pilot, using reasonable care to avoid pedestrians, who are VERY visible from the air by the way, can safely and without incident land an airplane of the type being discussed on a golf-course fairway. Such airplanes are routinely landed upon far less prepared terrain all over the world. Additionally, one need not be 'rich' to have such an airplane, and to fly it well. In a places like Alaska or Northern Canada, where people understand aviation, the incident would not have been noticed. The boy would have gotten out of the airplane, and his father would have gone on his way. So far as I can tell from the story, no rule was broken, and the 'fuel leak' was an invention, probably by a freshly minted and inexperienced FAA general aviation Operations Inspector, used to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
aha! So, as I suspected, the golfers are the real villians of this piece!
And, by the way, the reference above to the Federal Aviation Regulations left out the heading which states;
Sec. 91.119 - Minimum safe altitudes: General.
Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes:
My guess is that the annual Fairway dues cost more than it does to own this plane.
And dumb or not, you can bet that the boy has a great story to tell about his old man....and that's priceless!
i live in the area and there is definitely a bit of the entitlement factor going on, so i guess it's not surprising. people are just so much in a rush they don't think about others. that really was pretty dangerous - i drive down that road a lot and the golf course is right next to it. it's not a huge open space or anything. get out of the suburbs, people!