So, the critical update here is that Chile are agreeing to letting him leave, provided he donates $30k to charity.
That is extremely generous of them, considering what appears to have been the insanity of his stunt.
That is extremely generous of them, considering what appears to have been the insanity of his stunt.
“The prosecutor’s office said Guo must also pay all costs for his ‘aircraft security and personal maintenance’ during his stay at the military facility. He also needs to cover all expenses for his return.” So possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars more.
There is also a good chance the FAA revokes his pilot’s license.
Donating to charity is not impressive if you're still rich after you donate. Me giving $20 to a homeless person is a bigger blow to my personal wellbeing than this guy's "donation".
Heads up: You probably mean he is "flouting" those rules, not "flaunting." Different word.
I'm sure the entire Chilean military base with all the fuel they burn there and garbage they produce is built there specifically to protect Antarctic nature from occasional idiots in small planes.
He obviously can afford it, like the Chilean government could afford to put unnecessary military base there. Somehow when some government is stupidly splurging it's good and fine because they do it in accordance with rules, that they written themselves.
In regards to "rules they wrote themselves": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Environmental_Prot...
Its mostly there because it includes Chile’s main scientific/meteorological research station in Antarctica and the airfield providing for personnel and supply transport for both that station and the nearby stations of other countries.
“flouting” the rules actually.
Loosely:
Flaunting: ostentatiously displaying
Flouting: ostentatiously defying
And it seriously irked me. I know rules are there for a reason. Some are even good and make cooperation between people easier. But when rare edge case happens I hate that the first instinct of random people is to ponder how the rules, established by wealthy and powerful, should be applied with maximum severity to inflict maximum damage on the stupid kid that wanted to stand out. And all this while established international rules regarding war crimes are violated daily. And the criminal suffers no punishment, barely any inconvenience and gets to have a meeting with US president in Alaska, who himself is also a criminal, just not of the war flavor, yet, probably.
There was this guy a while back: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust
Young people want to do daring things. Don't crucify them in your minds on behalf of powerful, rich, old farts when they try, if noone got hurt.
The particular “slab of ice and rock” that he landed on without permission after filing a false flight plan appears to be (while the story mentions only that it is a military base) a public airport operated by the Chilean air force, and the only airport on King George Island. (The name the article uses for the base is actually the name of the airport that is part of the base, the base has a different name.)
There's kind of a good reason for them to be touchy about people not following protocol with things like flight plans and landing permissions.
> beautiful
Really?
An actual hacker would figure out something clever to not be caught, be arrested/detained for several weeks (de facto if not de jure), and relying on daddy's dollars to bail him out...
Finding a way to land a plane on all 7 continents is a really cool problem, and while I get that lying to officials on a form crosses an ethical line, we should at least honor the mindset of wanting to achieve something amazing most people would balk at, and give grace given the circumstance. This person should not be treated like a felon.
Furthermore, aviation as a field has had far too much of a conformance culture, and as as result we haven't seen any real breakthroughs, especially in (non-ultralight) general aviation since the 1970s. Cessna made GA accessible to middle-class families in the 1960s (a basic Cessna ran roughly $65,000 in today's dollars) -- but is there even a vendor today that sells a decent GA "toyota corolla"-type plane that is affordable for middle-class families? A brand-new Cessna 172 costs roughly $500,000 today, and a used airworthy one from the 1960s will cost at least $75,000. This field, and American manufacturing in general, needs more hackers.
He flew from one airport to another airport without permission of the local bureaucracies? I mean you get fined for breaking the rules but it doesn't seem that insane.
not just another airport , a _military_ airport
good luck trying that in the US