WATCH THE VIDEO. The people in the car were NOT new to the area or to the airport. There is something called a 'duty of care'. They do NOT have the right to carelessly drive across a known air traffic crossing or train crossing like that without checking...i.e. they are REQUIRED to exercise due care (duty of care) and consideration at that location and they failed to do that. The car was moving faster than the AIRPLANE and faster than the pilot could even have been expected to react!
Are you fucking kidding me?!? No one deserves to die! It would be easier to stop a car then a plane, as a driver of a car you have to be vigilant and know all the signs around you! A plane landing with where the nose is, it wouldn't be able to see the car so it would be the driver of the car is at fault!
The Pilot did not see the car for sure! As sitting on the left, and also no window on the buttom of the plane. And as it is an airport planes have priority. Always.
If the pilot had been where he was supposed to be, he would have cleared the car by at least 20 or 30 feet. This runway has a displaced threshold, which means the pilot should not have been landing where he was. The actual touch down point is supposed to be at the very minimum, about 200 feet further down the runway. The other "idiot" in the SUV should have yielded. But, it also wouldn't have mattered if he didn't, If the first idiot, had actually known, or been taught, how to land safely.
I would not give up on flying. Flying is safer than driveing. Case in point what pulled in front of what....the damned car just drives (with no regard for the airport and the stop sign) in front of the plane. I have been a pilot for decades, and my most scary moments have happened on my way to the airport, because of idiots like the one that drove in fron of the plane.
Yes you are rite about the displaced threshold. I have come into airports with displaced threshold and been in a slow flight attitude 2 feet off until clear of the threshold, then settle in for the landing so I could clear the runnway via a first taxiway. Granted I never went into an airport quite like this one, and may have approached a little differently, but used to put my cessna 150 into 1500 ft grass strips so short feild landings and takeoffs were my thing. This could have been me.
Many airports have roads of the end of a runway. Several in my area have busy state routes with high speed traffic, within very short distances of the runway pavement. They all have displaced thresholds, to keep you clear of the danger. If you do not abide by them, you can easily encounter a fast moving semi truck, in the same place this SUV was. The safest flying, is defensive flying. Always expect the worst, and avoid getting in any situations like this, that put you unnecessarily in danger.
