Posted on 07/14/2009 9:33:55 AM PDT by rdl6989
A man died after his car plunged 600 feet off the edge of the Grand Canyon's South Rim, authorities said Tuesday. The Arizona park's regional communications center received several reports of a car driving off the edge about 6 a.m. Monday, according to a written statement.
"Upon arriving at the scene, investigators found tire tracks leading to the edge behind the Thunderbird Lodge and received reports of a single occupant in a blue passenger car driving over the edge," the statement said.
Rescue personnel descended on ropes and found the vehicle about 600 feet into the canyon. The man's body was recovered shortly afterward, the statement said.
The incident occurred near the El Tovar hotel in a village on the canyon's South Rim, park spokeswoman Shannan Marcak said.
Authorities have not ruled the death a suicide, she said. "It has not been ruled anything at this time."
The statement said the National Park Service is investigating. Typically, Marcak said, such investigations take at least a few days.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
No, it would be traveling the initial speed + 32 ft/second squared - deceleration due to wind resistance. Likely the acceleration due to gravity can be ignored because the gravity component would be neglible compared to the initial speed, and the time would be short.
That was my son too!!! Once screamed at me that I was going to let his sister die because she was standing at the rail at the Ruby Falls Overlook.
He grew up to be a combat medic and has had to stablize injured persons in just such situations. His concern for his patients overrode his fear, but he still does NOT like heights. He trained with Airborne, jumped out of helicopters - would rather not.
The formula to use is d = 0.5 * g * t^2.
Solving for t would give sqrt(600 ft * 2 / 32 ft/sec^2)= 6.1 seconds.
In those 6.1 seconds the car would travel (6 sec) * (40 mi/hr) * (5280 ft/mi) / (3600 sec/hr) = 358 ft away from the canyon wall, assuming the canyon wall was vertical and the horizontal speed of the car remained constant.
I get dizzy on a step ladder. Hubby was griping recently because I still haven’t hung the family pictures after 3 years in the new house. I told him to get his happy butt up on the ladder and do it himself!
I never understood what possesses people to jump out of a perfectly good airplane...you wouldn't get me in one to begin with, LOL!
Dude, even looking at that picture takes my stomach away, uncool, very uncool ....
:-)
Heh. Good job there.
Back to my original post, think of those last seconds during the final plunge!
What I.m saying is that the bullet is aerodynamically designed to lessen drag . In that matter the terminal velocity will not be reached before the bullet hits the bottom of the canyon . The bullet should impact in about 4 sec. if the canyon is a mile deep . I shoot SHOTGUN target loads that travel at 1400 FPS .
Thank God...nobody was hurt. But I inspected the "crash site"....and I bet it was scary!!
Nevertheless....I am jumping again!!
One of the best things I've ever done...!!
Flying is safer than driving on the highway.
How'd you come up with that brilliant conclusion...less women drivers? {snark}...
Not true. The only acceptable method to compare risk between air travel and automobile travel is based on the number of deaths per hour of exposure.
Data from a respected safety analyst, Trevor Kletz, show that air travel has a fatal-accident frequency rate four times higher than that for driving a car. For airplane travel there are approximately 2.4 deaths per million hours of exposure; for travel by car the figure is 0.6 deaths per million hours of exposure.
Simply put, for the same number of hours riding in a car or riding in an airplane, you are four times more likely to be killed in an airplane than in a car.
-- JOHN M. HOFFMANN President Safety Engineering Labs Inc. Detroit, Nov. 22, 1994
Statistically that is the case if you figure it on a per-hour basis. When you figure it on a per-trip basis, car, train and bus come out safer than the airplane.
Driving: 1.1 fatalities per fatal accident
General Aviation: 1.7 fatalities per fatal accident
Airlines: 31 fatalities per fatal accident
Not if you’re flying off the rim of a canyon, it’s not.
Neah.
The correct way to figure it is to measure per miles of travel, not hours of exposure.
After all, you don’t get nearly as much “exposure” flying 600 miles as you do driving 600 miles. You get about 1 hour exposure on a commercial aircraft, vs. about 10 hours on the highway.
They tell you down front, “This is not Disney World! It’s wilderness, and it is NOT designed for safety.”
Hope his pay is worth the risk.
I actually find that picture difficult to look at.
Coincidence? I, think not.
I do too. I get weak knees at the top of a 15ft. ladder. There’s no way I could ever do what he does.
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