Gender reveal stunt leads to plane crash in Texas
Another gender reveal celebration has gone wrong, this time causing a recent plane crash in west Texas.
While flying a crop-duster plane at a low altitude, a pilot dumped about 350 gallons of pink water for a gender reveal for a friend, according to a National Transportation Safety Board accident report released Friday. The airplane "got too slow" and stalled before crashing.
The pilot, 49-year-old Raj Horan, was not injured in the crash, which occurred in Turkey, Texas, in September. Passenger Jennifer Harrell suffered minor injuries, according to the incident report.
The Federal Aviation Administration said there were two people on board what was meant to be a single-seat airplane. According to the Turkey Volunteer Fire Department and EMS, one of the passengers was driven to a hospital via private vehicle, and one was flown from Turkey to nearby Apollo.
The plane, which flipped over when it hit the ground, suffered substantial damage to the fuselage, right wing and empennage.
"The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation," the accident report said.
Gender reveal parties are intended to be a celebration for parents prior to the birth of their child, but some have gone catastrophically wrong in recent years.
In June, a gender reveal in Australia turned disastrous when a car emitting blue smoke suddenly burst into flames. In another case, in April 2017, a gender reveal stunt that involved a highly explosive substance shot with a rifle sparked a massive wildfire in Arizona that damaged more than 45,000 acres.
