Have you ever been close to death?

[Dauphin]

A while ago we had a "Most stupidest thing you've ever done" thread but I'm wondering if anyone might want to share some stories about how they came close to death and lived to tell the tale.

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For me, I was 11 and my father took me down to the Yarra River for a scenic helicopter flight over Melbourne one Sunday in a little Kawasaki KH-4. We had just taken off and were high up over St Kilda Rd when it all went crazy and we autorotated (glided) down into the city Alexander Gardens amongst picnickers.

The media and police came and we were picked up by the company's car and driven home and given a refund.

I found the official CASA accident report and it started that it was transmission failure but I tracked down the pilot last year, who now flies Chinooks in PNG, and he told me all about it. It was a rare, massive wind gust that shoved us up and caused the rotor disc to lose its ability, causing us to sink and become inverted, literally falling out of the sky.

After hearing this, I now remember seeing the Yarra River out the TOP of the helicopter's windows, and so does he. I remember having a vision of fire engines attending the scene of our crash somewhere in the city.

The pilot managed to regain control and glide us in, narrowly missing some raised light wiring set up for Moomba. He said we were twice lucky that day, once with the recovery from the aircraft out of control, and two as we glided in with no power and he almost didn't see the wires.

CASA didn't take the pilot's report of weather phenomena seriously and he feared for his reputation so he let it go.

Despite this, I still love choppers and aircraft in general.

I'd like to read other people's stories...