Australian pilot painted as a hero after fatal Goodyear airship crash (VIDEO)
The Australian pilot of an airship that crashed in Germany has emerged a hero, with news reports saying he saved the lives of three passengers onboard by urging them to jump to safety while he stayed behind.
According to Fox News:
Mike Nerandzic, 53, a veteran airship pilot who flew for more than 20 years, brought the Goodyear airship to just below 7 feet off the ground and told his passengers to jump. After the three leaped to safety, the airship was soon engulfed in flames and soared to 150 feet due to the loss of weight in the cabin.
Nerandzic, from Wollongong in the state of New South Wales, was trying to land the Goodyear "blimp" at an airfield Sunday during the Hessentag music festival in Reichelsheim, central Germany, when it caught fire, Australia's Channel 9 News reports, quoting the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs.
"We're having a crash," he reportedly said, encouraging the German journalists onboard to leap to safety.
The change in cabin weight reportedly caused the blimp to shoot up into the air just as it became engulfed in flames. The four-seater blimp then crashed into a meadow near the airfield.
"We could also hear the cries of the doomed pilot as the fire surrounded him," one witness was quoted by The Sun newspaper as saying. "It was terrible."
Nerandzic "always put other people first," one former coworker reportedly said, Channel 9 reports.
"I don't even think he would have realized he was doing it — it would have just been instinct," the ex-colleague said.
Authorities are working to establish what caused the blimp — owned and operated by Lightship Europe Limited but leased by Goodyear for marketing purposes — to crash.