In the Gravest Extreme...
Posted on 02/04/2013 6:43:52 PM PST by Nachum
ST. LUCIE COUNTY — A small helicopter that crashed Saturday in far western St. Lucie County was carrying an internationally known firearms expert who was hunting wild hogs from the air using a handgun.
Live Oak resident Massad Ayoob, 64, his hunting companion Jonathan Strayer, 46, and pilot William Harward, 55, were above the tree tops, at about 100 feet, when the Hiller helicopter lost power and plunged to the ground around 9:15 a.m. Saturday, Ayoob said Monday.
“A few minutes into the flight, as we were zoning in on an oinker that had run under the canopy of some tall pines, the engine lost power,” he said.
The helicopter’s main rotor hit the trees, shattering the blades, said Ayoob. His home of Live Oak is east of Tallahassee in Suwannee County.
Ayoob, Strayer and Harward walked away — with cuts, bruises and some bleeding — and used a cellphone to call for help.
(Excerpt) Read more at wptv.com ...
Seems to be a lot of prominent firearm experts dying these days.
Okay. I’m all in now. Conspiracy? Damn right.
Looks like he survived this crash, though.
Sounds fun but if he was a real man he’d hunt hogs with a knife.
/johnny
Now people are ACTIVELY hunting for any story having anything remotely to do with anyone involved in firearms having anything bad happen to them.
3 months ago this story probably wouldn't have been posted to FR, and you never would have known about it.
“if he was a real man he’d hunt hogs with a knife”
HA!
While I admit to carry a butter knife as backup,
my primary weapon is a fly swatter.....
writes columns for NRA magazines. relieved he’s semi-ok.
It’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.
This part of Fairfax county has about 50,000 deer. The Northern part has maybe 65,000 or more. Otherwise it's fairly urban. The government continues to dither on a way to reduce these herds ~ it was so bad the last three years I only needed to mow my lawn about 6 times since it was getting cropped nicely by deer.
No fatalities this time. Ayoob walked away from the crash.
Yep, kind of like the anti-frackers looking for any tiny earthquake as proof of the evils of fracking. Suddenly you see 1.1 earthquakes in the news even though in the past, they wouldn’t even make a USGS monitor report.
Yes, this story would have been posted. He’s not a nobody. He’s well known and respected around here.
That’s the thing: all of these guys are. Noveske, Kyle, FPSRussia, Ayoob, 1-2 others ... They’d all garner multiple FR threads. They all went (Ayoob’s honorable mention included) within days of each other. And they’re all names which some non-shooter tasked with identifying “insider leaders” would come up with. The list might seem a bit odd to those of us inside this box, but makes a certain sense as viewed from outside by someone looking to disrupt.
Odd coincidence I hope.
I’m not one for conspiracy theories (fond of shredding them instead).
Keep an eye on the news; one more such incident and methinks things will get very ugly very fast.
Wow!
I am glad they walked away.
Ain't nuttin. I have a cousin who hunts bear with a switch. Big ole gal, that one ;-)
In the Gravest Extreme...
Ya, first liar doesn’t stand a chance....
Here at FR, apparently, neither does the second....
Two might be a coincidence. More, not so much.
Ugh Oh!.... not another “accident”...
Many of the right people will notice “this”....
“Once is happenstance. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” — Auric Goldfinger
As he passed under me, he stopped and looked up at me. You could almost see the calculations going through his mind as how best to knock me off my perch.
“Looks like he survived, though.”
That’s good. But it does seem like many prominent people, who are opposed to Obama have an unnaturally short existence.
I'm not likely to do that again. Best ribs I ever ate, though.
/johnny
That’s because the conspirators are really really bad at what they are doing. THey couldn’t figure out how to kill a man with a helicopter crash.
Since half of us are opposed to Obama, do you really think it’s going to be hard to find prominent people having accidents who are opposed to Obama?
I generally think of FR as populated by intelligent people, who understand human nature. The recent conspiracy threads have led me to question that assumption.
Come on, people. Surely this is not a foreign concept? Like when you suddenly notice dozens of cars that are like the car you just bought, and you think everybody is following your lead?
Glad to hear he walked away from it. Lately there seems to be a lot of bad joo joo for anybody in the firearms theatre. Chicagocide?
I didn’t realize Ayoob lived in Live Oak which is in North Florida. My Daddy was born there. It is a nice town with a lot of rural area, ideal for hunting or fishing along the Suwanee River.
I respect Ayoob as he knows his stuff but he can be a litle slipery in making his reports.
I had to drive to Defuniak Springs Saturday and saw a wild hog beside the road where he had been hit by a vehicle. Today I had to go to the Dr. and coming home, I noticed a flock of turkeys, big ones tho I think they were all hens.
I have a lifetime hunting license but I knew Turkeys weren’t in season. I would like to get one this year as they are one of the tastiest game out there.
Their main problem right now is an overpopulation of white tails. They have so many deer that they are stripping away all of the groundcover, which has resulted in severe erosion problems.
‘Chicagocide?’
Yep.
I recognized that name roght away... he writes for Backwoods Home, doesn’t he?
Ifin he wuz a FReeper, he'da kilt hisself a bear with a knife...
Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping!
To get onto The Nut-job Conspiracy Theory Ping List you must threaten to report me to the Mods if I don’t add you to the list...
Like thousands of shooters, I’m proud to say I met him at an event and shook his hand.
I was holding my breath reading this, until I saw that he walked away....whew....
Yes, the one that got away....
It’s not simply prominent people. It’s noted firearms professionals (and military). Mighty odd coinkidinks. It’s like being totally surrounded by the same car (probably bullet-proof black SUVs)...
Stunned and relieved here too. 250+ hours in LFI.
If you name 5 people, and then they die in the next two weeks — that is a real conspiracy.
If 5 people die in the next two weeks, and then you name them — that’s how your brain works, looking for patterns.
There are many things that surprise people, and because they don’t understand, they think it is significant. Like the dual questions of whether someone in the room shares your birthday, and whether two people in the room share a birthday. People assume the first is rare, because with 365 days to choose from, they think you need hundreds of people to find someone with your date. And in fact, for there two be a 50% chance, you need about 250 people in the room.
BUT, for a 50% chance that SOMEONE has the same birthday, you only need 23 people. So in a room of 30 people, SOMEONE is going to ask the question, and find a match. And since they think the odds were low (remember, 250 people for 50%), they think something odd is happening. Because once you know YOU are the one who has the match, the self-selection is forgotten.
I once went to the office of a subcontractor, and while I was talking I noticed my briefcase sitting on his table. I knew it was mine, because it was dialed to my combination. But it couldn’t be, and I asked him. Turned out he, like I, had set it to his birthday — and we had the same birthday. A remarkable coincidence indeed, that we shared a birthday AND the same briefcase AND set it to our birthday.
But not a sign of a conspiracy — it’s just that in the random nature of the world, almost everything happens to someone somewhere. SOMEONE will flip a coin 100 times and get heads every time. And to THAT person, it won’t seem like random chance, they will think it is something very special.
When you look behind the stories here, it is easy to see there is nothing really connecting them.
And yes, I’ve looked up and found myself surrounded by the same car — my car. And I thought “Wow, that’s odd”. But it is bound to happen to someone at sometime. And you won’t notice the millions of times you look up and are NOT surrounded by 4 other cars just like yours. But you will remember the one time they were all Priuses.
Last anecdote. During the hunt for the DC Sniper, everybody was looking for white box vans. Why? Because it turns out that at almost any time in any crowded location, if you look up, you’ll see a white panel van with no markings (just try it, it’s scary). So every time they asked witnesses, a bunch would always report seeing a white panel van. The actual perp was driving a blue sedan.
Wow, I was just thinkg about Ayoob about 5-7 days ago - read some of his stuff back in the early 1990’s.
Never ,ever trust a helicopter. Ask Francis Gary Powers.
Never ,ever trust a helicopter. Ask Francis Gary Powers.
Or Stevie Ray Vaughan
I better tell my son...
Damn, I can't believe how long ago that has been now. Glad he made it ok.
How does a Hiller get airborne with three adult males on board?
I don’t know about that. Seems pretty gutsy crashing a helicopter on top of a hog to kill it.
You mean, like this knife?
Thanks for the Ping, Nully.
I’ve only ever needed a Q-tip for hunting. It’s the most humane way.
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