Appleton, a trained stunt pilot who loved aviation, in July 2004 survived the crash of a stunt plane he was flying. Appleton back then didn’t reveal how bad his injuries were, underplaying their seriousness. In fact, he had suffered head injuries, broken bones and a punctured lung in that accident.    

But that crash didn’t daunt Appleton, a self-proclaimed risk taker who built Micron into an $8.8 billion company. On Friday, Appleton got in the cockpit of an experimental plane, a Lancair IVP, in Boise, Idaho. 

On Appleton’s second takeoff attempt, the aircraft stalled and crashed, bursting into flames. Appleton’s body was thrown from the wreckage, according to the Associated Press. He was 51, and leaves behind a wife and four chidren.

 http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20120204/micron-appleton-CEO-dead-20120204/

The plane that Appleton was flying, according to a 2009 notice from the Federal Aviation Adminstration, has had a disproportionate number of fatal accidents, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. It is considered an “amateur-built experimental aircraft.”   

 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/02/03/bloomberg_articlesLYU7D06KLVR901-LYUGE.DTL

And apparently as such,  the Lancair doesn’t have to fulfill the same safety stardards as other planes. Quite frankly, I had never known that there were such as thing as “amateur-built planes” that are made from kits. 

The model Lancair that Appleton was flying, the IVP, could reach speeds of up to 330 mph at 24,000, The Chronicle reported.

Appleton loved to boast about his daredevil ways, and how he would never abandon them. Since ancient times hubris has been the downfall of many a man. It’s a shame that Appleton, like Icarus, ignored the warnings of others and also fell from the sky to his death.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-01-29/deadly-crashes-florida/52869582/1?csp=34news

The collisions took place on Interstate 75 south of Gainesville, on a part of the highway that had temporarily been closed because of smoke from a brush fire and fog, which was impacting driver visibility. Even after the accident, authorities were having difficulty recovering victims because of the visibility issue, according to AP, and had to follow the pleas and cries of the injured to find them.

In addition to the dead, at least 18 people were hurt in the pileup, AP reported.

The wire service said that the accident scene was strewn with burned-up vehicles, with cars having crashed into some of the large trucks.  It was apparently a horrifying scene, with one tractor-trailer burned to its metal frame, the rubber on vehicle tires totally melted away, and bodies remaining in some cars, according to AP.

One witness told AP that he had seen one man’s car hit and pushed beneath a tractor-trailer in front of it, crushing the car.

Authorities had closed Interstate 75 because of smoke from a brush fire that had been burning since Saturday, but reopened it when highway visibility had improved, according to AP.   

First, there were the transcripts of the captain of the ill-fated Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino, cowardly refusing to get back on the ship, despite orders to do so by an Italian coast guard officer. 

From the safety of a lifeboat, Schettino played dumb and delivered non sequiturs when asked why he wasn’t aboard helping his passengers — who included women and children — evacuate. One of the captain’s explanation? It was too dark to go back on the sinking ship.

His excuses were so ridiculous that in a stroke of genuis, the New York Post dubbed him “Chicken of the Sea” in its Page One headline. 

Next, Schettino claimed he tripped and fell off the ship into a lifeboat. What? 

And in the latest turn in the story, Schettino was seen dining with a young blonde, 25-year-old Domnica Cemortan, right before the ship hit a reef and capsized last Friday. She was apparently onboard illegally.   

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/01/19/captain-in-cruise-ship-disaster-says-fell-out-ship-during-evacuation/

The 32 people who are either dead or missing include a retired couple from White Bear Lake, Minn. Jerry and Barbara Heil, devout Catholics, haven’t been found yet. They went on the trip as their reward for putting their four kids through college.

Schettino faces charges, including manslaughter, for the accident.

On Thursday Carnival Corp, the parent of the Italian company that owns the Costa Concordia, announced that it was going to perform a review of its emergency-response procedures throughout all 10 of its cruise lines, according to AP.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/10112609-418/after-italian-cruise-accident-carnival-corp-wants-safety-review.html?print=true

That review, which Carnival CEO Micky Arison said is meant to avoid future accidents, will be spearheaded by the company’s senior vice president of Maritime Policy & Compliance. He is retired Navy Capt. James Hunn.

In its press release the company also said that would cooperate with a evaluation of safety regulations by the International Maritime Organization.

Francesco Schettino has been arrested on charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship before his vessel, the Costa Concordia, was evacuated Friday night, and Sunday his employer pointed the finger at him, as well. Costa Crociere put out a statement saying that Schettino had made “serious errors of judgment,” by taking the cruise ship too near shore, according to Reuters. The boat hit a large rock, which tore a hole in its side.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/16/us-italy-ship-idUSTRE80D08220120116

Many media reports have compared the tragic accident to the sinking of the Titanic  a century ago. Passengers on the Italian ship were eating dinner when it struck the rock, setting off a not very pleasant scene of panic off the west coast of Italy. Evacuation protocols weren’t used. Passengers accused the crew of hogging the lifeboats. There were fights over life preservers. 

In some good news, a member of the crew and a honeymooning South Korean couple were rescued Sunday, Reuters reported. But the bodies of two older men, in life jackets, were also discovered.

And worse of all, 11 passengers and six crew members remain missing, according to Reuters.

The ship, which has more than 4,200 passengers — including 126 Americans — remained partially submerged and lying on its side in the port of Giglio, off the coast of Tuscany.  

http://www.goupstate.com/article/20120103/wire/120109960

The accident in Dry Ridge, Ky., closed down the southbound lane of the Interstate for several hours. The pileup happened at 12:22 p.m. when cars and other vehicles collided on that lane, north of Crittenden and south of Cincinnati, according to AP.

Kenton County Police in Kentucky said that six of the people hurt in the accident were sent to hospitals, but that they didn’t sustain life-threatening injuries, AP reported. In addition, police said that 23 vehicles had to be towed from the scene. The southbound lanes of Interstate 75 were re-opened at about 2:45 p.m.    

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=15254790&sid=81

The multi-vehicle accident took place on busy Interstate 10 at 4: 30 a.m., The Times-Picayune reported. The highway goes across Louisiana.

http://www.nola.com/traffic/index.ssf/2011/12/fatal_accident_closes_i-10_in.html

AP reported that the pileup happened when motorists suddenly drove into either heavy smoke or fog, so they lost visibility on the westbound lanes of Interstate 10. Witnesses told the wire service that they heard crash victims yelling for help.

The accident, which took place between exits 246 and 248, shut down Interstate 10 in both directions for several hours.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/12/us-to-pay-178-million-to-family-killed-in-military-jet-crash.html

In California U.S. Disrict Court Judge Jeffrey Miller granted the award stemming from the Dec. 8, 2008, crash of an F/A-18D Hornet, which hit and demolished the home of the Yoon family, The Times reported. The Marine Corps did admit responsibility for the tragic crash in a residential neighborhood, according to the newspaper.

The judge made his award after hearing three days of testimony from Yoon family members and evidence from government lawyers.

Don Yoon’s wife, mother-in-law and two daughters — ages 15 months and seven weeks — where killed as a result of the plane crash. He was not home at the time of the accident.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/12/trial-begins-to-determine-compensation-for-marine-aircraft-crash.html

The  Marines said the accident happened because of mechanical failures and mistakes by the pilot and other military personnel, according to The Times. The military said that the pilot got inaccurate instructions from officers on the ground and opted not to try land at North Island Naval Air Station.

The pilot had been attempting to land at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, which is roughly a dozen miles from North Island, according to The Times.  He was doing a training flight from aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. 

The newspaper reported that the pilot ejected and survived. Following a Marine investigation, he was initially grounded but was later returned to flying status. But four officers were relieved of duty, and eight other Marines and a sailor were reprimanded, The Times reported. 

Last month at Thanksgiving a pilot, his three children, and an aircraft mechanic died when their plane crashed into the Superstition Mountains not far from Scottdale, Ariz. 

And on Tuesday morning five people –  including a married couple, their two children and their dog — were killed in an accident in Morris Township, N.J., when their plane crashed on a busy highway, Route 287. The aircraft barely missed hitting a pickup truck when it nosedived near the highway, bursting into flames.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/nj_plane_crash.html

The anguish that the survivors of both these families must be feeling, in what should be a jolly time of the year, must be unimaginable.

The New Jersey accident took the lives of Jeffrey Buckalew and his wife Corinne, both 45, their son Jackson, 11, their daughter Meriweather, 9, and their pet dog, according to The Star-Ledger of Newark. Buckalew’s colleague at an investment banking firm in Manhattan, Rakesh Chawla, 36, also perished.

Buckalew was the pilot of the plane, and had his pilot’s license for about a decade, according to The Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204791104577110493871800040.html

 Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) ended their recovery efforts about 6 p.m. Tuesday at nightfall, noting that the effort was going moving along slower than expected because of the heavy traffic on busy Route 287, according to The Ledger. Parts of the plane, a Socata TBM-700m were strewn on the hghway. 

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/5_killed_in_plane_crash_in_mor.html

The plane had taken off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and was en route to DeKalb-Peachtree Airport in Atlanta. The crash, whose cause is under investigation, happened just 15 minutes after the plane’s takeoff, The Ledger reported.

Buckalew had discussed ‘icy conditions with air traffic control shortly after takeoff. He and his family were going to spend the holidays with his inlaws.

Both he and Chawla were managing directors at Greenhill & Co. 

The Associated Press Thursday did a long story about salesmen and attorneys who are livid that they may be prohibited from getting some work done and making phone calls as they travel within their territories or drive to see clients or go to court.

http://www.nj.com/newsflash/index.ssf/story/could-us-drivers-ever-abide-by-cellphone/bed05d6ff9b84d1e900377ec6bf3807a

The story was about the reaction to a recommendation that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued  Tuesday: That the states pass bans on texting and cellphone use by motorists.

One man who owns massage and waxing parlors told AP that he is on the road four days a week, and needs to be able to resolve customer issues immediately. This man uses a hands-free cell.

A lawyer told AP “that he racks up at least 25 billable hours each week while driving.”

Boo hoo.

Saving lives is more important that more billable hours on-the-go.  

http://www.azcentral.com/community/nephoenix/articles/2011/12/15/20111215plane-crashes-phoenix-neighborhood-near-scottsdale-airport.html

The Cirrus SR22 was about to land when it went down in a residential area, on Joan De Arc Avenue not far from 70th Street at 10 a.m., The Republic reported. Authorities haven’t revealed the names of the two men who were on the single-engine plane.

But the pilot was a 62-year-old man, and he was found dead inside the aircraft. His 60-year-old passenger, miraculously, was taken to a trauma center but apparently didn’t have life-threatening wounds from the accident, according to The Republic.

The paper reported that the aircraft was registered to Frank M. Smith and Associates of Pinetop, Ariz., and was enroute from Show Low to Scottsdale.

The accident is being probed by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.

Residents of Scottsdale and Phoenix who live near the airport used the crash to once again voice their concern about planes landing and taking off there, Th Republic reported. Last year the airport agreed to allow jets take off with as much as 100,000 pounds of fuel, compared to a previous limit of 75,000 pounds.