Pilot Ejected From Airplane by Mistake

Student wasn't wearing a seat belt when aircraft nose-dived
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 30, 2013 3:30 PM CDT
Pilot Ejected From Airplane by Mistake
This screen grab from a WRCB-TV report shows the plane that ejected the student pilot.   (WRCB-TV)

Freak accident in Tennessee: A student pilot was ejected from his plane during a lesson and fell about 2,500 feet to his death, NBC News reports. The man, as yet unidentified, flew out of the plane during a malfunction yesterday because he wasn't wearing a seat belt. Neither was the instructor, but he somehow managed to hold on when the two-seater nose-dived and its canopy flew open. The instructor then steadied the plane and landed it safely.

The student, an experienced pilot who wanted to get better, had bought the Zodiac 601XL—a single-engine kit aircraft—from the family of a man who died in a plane crash last year. The body of the new owner was found east of Chattanooga this morning. (More plane accident stories.)

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