Most of the time, air travel is perfectly safe. Even when there are problems with equipment, most of the time the plane doesn’t take off and the problems are discovered before any issues arise. That’s not always the case, but planes are usually built in with redundant equipment to prevent catastrophe. However, when emergency landings are needed, they’re usually very dangerous unless you can find some open road to put the plane down in. Former Walmart CEO Bill Simon had to crash-land his plane on a busy street after equipment failure.
“Given the proximity of the high school and the university and all the traffic, it could have been an absolute tragedy,” said Craig Stout of the Fayetteville Police Department.
The plane, a single-engine Cirrus equipped with a parachute for emergency landing, was on the way from Arkansas to Waco, Texas, where Simon is a chancellor at Baylor University. The plane had taken off from Bentonville, home of Walmart, when it developed oil pressure problems, a huge problem with all aircraft. While trying to make an emergency landing at Fayetteville’s Drake Field, the plane went down on MLK Boulevard.
Simon and his two passengers were taken to the hospital for treatment of non-serious injuries.
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