A guy that likes to talk about airplane crashes......crashes an airplane.



Delta Air Lines has suspended a pilot while officials investigate charges he tried to run over two Griffin police officers with his private plane.

Dan Wayne Gryder, 48, remains in the Spalding County jail, charged with two counts of aggravated assault and obstruction. He is being held without bond and is scheduled to be arraigned on Friday, the sheriff’s office said.

Gryder, a Delta pilot and private aircraft instructor, was arrested Wednesday at the Griffin-Spalding Airport.

“He is suspended pending the completion into the investigation in this incident,” Delta spokesman Anthony Black said Thursday.
The FAA is also investigating Wednesday's incident and could revoke Gryder's pilot's license or issue additional sanctions.

"If it was a violation, it would be a civil matter not a criminal matter," FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said.

Griffin code enforcement officers were called to the airport on Wednesday for a report of a pilot disrupting the airport. Gryder was driving his car across the runway and taxiway, Griffin Police Investigator Bryan Clanton said.

The two officers approached the suspect and he gave them a fake name. After learning the pilot was Gryder, the officers attempted to issue him six citations, police said.

However, Gryder refused to sign the tickets and boarded his plane, a 1937 DC-3A. He started the engine and told one of the officers that if she moved, he would strike her, police said.

The officer, who was standing next to the prop, moved out of the way and summoned backup.

Additional Griffin officers and Spalding County deputies flooded the area and ordered him to stop, but Gryder continued to taxi down the runway, police said.

Gryder got to the end of the runway and attempted to take off, but he was out of gas.

Police arrested Gryder and transported him to jail.

Gryder’s actions disrupted air traffic, prohibiting flights from departing or arriving, police said.

“He essentially shut the airport down for almost 45 minutes,” Clanton said. “His actions created a danger for all of our officers, himself and others who lawfully use the airport.”

Gryder has a history of disturbances at the Griffin airport, including previous complaints of him illegally driving his car on the runways, according to Robert Mohl, the airport's director.

“He’s done it before and he’s been warned," Mohl said.

Mohl said he doesn't understand why Gryder didn't just sign the tickets on Wednesday, which would have ordered him to appear in court. He likely would have just gotten a fine instead of jail time, Mohl said.

"But he decided to pursue a different course of action, which disrupted our planes from coming and going," he said.

The Griffin airport does not have air traffic control, so pilots must announce their own comings and goings, Mohl said.

"It’s quite safe as long as everybody follows the rules. One of the rules is ground vehicles stay off the runways and taxiways," Mohl said.
FAA records show Gryder has one prior investigation into a mechanical problem in 2005. There was a problem with a bracket that fastened his rear landing gear. FAA investigated it and found he was not at fault, Bergen said.

Gryder has his own hangar at the Griffin airport, where he stores the DC-3A involved in Wednesday's incident and several other aircraft, Mohl said.

Gryder uses his planes for metro area airshows and to teach other pilots. Gryder operates an aviation training and consulting company.
Reached Thursday night, Gryder's wife declined to comment and said her husband would be home on Friday.
 
Gryder's wife declined to comment and said her husband would be home on Friday.

So actually probably Thursday morning with 24 at the ole Hampton to decompress with bottle of Jack and get his story straight.
 
How many NTSB members you think they're going to send on this one? My guess is the entire office is going to be crawling all over this airplane.

Glad they're safe.


Are you? ...Really?

Random observations before moving on:
1. Corn is a remarkably good energy absorber. I highly recommend it for your, er, off-field excursions.
2. Looks like this dude missed the road and accidentally landed in the corn. Still a win for him, even if unintentional.

This kind of hypocrisy/irony/coincidence happens frequently...

 
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Did I hear correctly that he is "WOLFPILOT"!? Lololololol. Ol. Ol. *cough*. Ol. AROOOOOOOOOO!
At the bar, how do know you're sitting next to a pilot?
He'll TELL you.

On social media, how do you know you're watching a pilot?
He'll tell you he's not just a pilot, but a wolf, too!!

It takes a brave man to admit he's a Fokke'ing Wulf!
I am not a brave man.

 
There's only a handful of people I honestly dont like in this world. And I don't want any of them to die in a plane crash.
Fair enough. I really wish aviation was truly as "Darwinian" as all of us god-heroes pretend it is. Or... at least as Darwinian as the insurance industry portrays it to be.
 
Credit where it's due, he got his story on pape...er electrons while the wreckage was still hot. Just have to stick with it like white on rice no matter what the NTSB says. THE HATCH JUST BLEW.
There has been too much pain... too much suffering... WALK AWAY!

No.

Seriously.

No credit here. The first rule of cops and cameras... DON'T OPEN YOUR HOLE!!! Full stop. Period.
 
I'm not precisely sure what you're on about, but loved simply by virtue of The Clash aka The only band that matters. I say this as a dude just to right of Atilla the Hun on many, maybe even most subjects. But I still don't wanna be The Prisoner.

 
I'm not precisely sure what you're on about, but loved simply by virtue of The Clash aka The only band that matters. I say this as a dude just to right of Atilla the Hun on many, maybe even most subjects. But I still don't wanna be The Prisoner.

What I'm on about is... I'm just so stunned and disheartened that a beautiful nation born in the evanescent opportunity of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason has come to such an ignominious nadir.

Also... I'm onto your Fokke-Wulf fetish, homes.
 
What I'm on about is... I'm just so stunned and disheartened that a Nation born of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason has come to such an ignominious nadir.

Yeah well, I dunno. I blame Rousseau. He had to stick his stinky, giant, lying, myth-perpetuating, pseudo-mythologizing, prevaricating Gallic nose in to the whole Enlightenment thing and it was apologies all around and let's try again. Frickin Frogs.
 
Yeah well, I dunno. I blame Rousseau. He had to stick his stinky, giant, lying, myth-perpetuating, pseudo-mythologizing, prevaricating Gallic nose in to the whole Enlightenment thing and it was apologies all around and let's try again. Frickin Frogs.
Frikken Frogs need to get Fokke-Wulfed in their hind sections. In fact, they alway have been. Kinky thing is, they seem to like it. Frikken Frogs.
 
If you're so inclined, "The New Confessions" by William Boyd. His best work. Old now, I think.
Got a bootleg PDF you can send me? I'm a poor, illiterate pilot. And nobody seems to want to fund libraries anymore 'cause they're commie. ;)

Just BTW, damn, New Confessions! That would be a great title for one the ten thousand post-Trump apocalypse cathartic dime drops.
 
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Lemme work on that. It's a long book, I don't think I'm going to photograph it even for posterity. I'd give dollars to donuts that you could find "The Blue Afternoon" at any reputable used-book seller. It'd give you the taste. He's VERY British, but also very good. Think Evelyn Waugh, but maybe at once more serious about selling books less serious and being someone who would be referenced in 50 years. I suspect that he's regarded in Britain in much the same way as maybe like Jonathan Franzen is in the States. Walking that line between snooty Literature and you know like mass-market paperbacks. If anyone asked me, and they didn't, I would say that's where the good writing lives, these days.
 
Lemme work on that. It's a long book, I don't think I'm going to photograph it even for posterity. I'd give dollars to donuts that you could find "The Blue Afternoon" at any reputable used-book seller. It'd give you the taste. He's VERY British, but also very good. Think Evelyn Waugh, but maybe at once more serious about selling books less serious and being someone who would be referenced in 50 years. I suspect that he's regarded in Britain in much the same way as maybe like Jonathan Franzen is in the States. Walking that line between snooty Literature and you know like mass-market paperbacks. If anyone asked me, and they didn't, I would say that's where the good writing lives, these days.

That's an interesting question... in many ways. Do you reckon there is really so much conscious intention involved? If a basketball player displayed such self-consciousness while shooting a free throw, he would never make a shot. A ski racer displaying such self-consciousness would fall every race.

With few exceptions, I've always noticed that brilliance derives from beta or gamma. America seems to derive from Theta (the Thanatos wave)

While studying literature in the presence of the the exalted Dons, I was constantly told that every word placed on paper by "the chosen few" of the canon were placed there with exquisitely precise intention. I typically called BS on such puffery, as well as on much other such puffery. But hey, they were the exalted Dons, and I was Mongo, monkey boy. So I typically ended up with either an A for "courageous and iconoclastic insight" or an F for being a "contrary, iconoclastic ass".

Thankfully, the As outweighed the Fs. And, only tangentially related, at EOD, I always felt better for taking a definitive stand.
 
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This just seems like an accumulation of factors that I would avoid.

So, it's hot (1) and you're heavy (2) and you are flying somebody else's (3) old (4) plane that you may not be familiar with (4.5). You decide to shoot a flaps-40 approach (5) on a short (6) grass (7) strip that you are not comfortable landing on due to the wheel pants (8). So, you are planning a go-around and using the only configuration that precludes climbing if you have a problem with flap retraction, more common with electric flaps (9).



 
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