A hankering for Hot Pockets saved the life of a man whose apartment was hit by a small plane. Jason Bartley, a 38-year-old factory, worker lost everything in the fiery crash–except his own life.
Nine people were killed.
There's a GoFundMe to help Jason get into a new home, and replace some of what's possible to replace. "Jason had no renter's insurance and is literally left with nothing," his friends write.
The NTSB is investigating the crash.
From Ohio.com:
Jason Bartley's spur-of-the-moment purchase of a pizza Hot Pocket and a breakfast Hot Pocket kept him away from his apartment a few minutes longer than he had planned — the apartment that was destroyed in the inferno that erupted during the plane crash that killed nine people Tuesday on the eastern edge of Akron.
Precisely 39 minutes before the crash, he had been in the apartment, noodling around on his computer, trying to arrange a vacation to Miami the week after Christmas.He realized that would take a considerable amount of time, and he wanted to get to the bank before it closed and run some other errands.
The clock read 2:14 as he tossed on a lightweight jacket and headed for the car. He stopped first at Chase Bank on Canton Road, then at the Giant Eagle next door.
Hustling to get home, he noted the time on his car radio: 2:45. Bartley decided to stop at Dollar General for that night's dinner and the next morning's breakfast.
As he was driving back to his apartment, he saw the smoke and flames and knew they would be very near his residence. Because the roads were closed, he parked his car and ran in that direction. When he saw that his apartment was the one ablaze, he immediately thought: "Oh, my God. What did I do?"
Eventually, someone explained about the plane.
His emotions since have ranged from being "very grateful" to "wanting to cry."
Again, here's Jason's GoFundMe. Poor guy.
More: Akron apartment dweller misses plane crash by minutes [ohio.com]
NTSB officials investigating the crash say another pilot who just landed at a nearby airport says he didn't hear any distress calls, even though he was on the same radio communications frequency as the aircraft that crashed.
The crashed plane had been expected to land at a small Akron airport that doesn't have a control tower. The incoming flight was guided remotely by a larger airport in the area.
A cockpit voice recorder has been located and will be used in the ongoing NTSB investigation.
[via Reddit]
