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Rough Landing · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production
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  Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world
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  Speaker 1: is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
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  Speaker 1: open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
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  Speaker 1: on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Even if you don't think of
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  Speaker 1: yourself as superstitious, you've probably knocked on wood or uttered
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  Speaker 1: a casual bless you when someone sneezes. It's in our
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  Speaker 1: nature to want to control the uncontrollable, and superstitions are
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  Speaker 1: just one way that we exert that desire, even if
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  Speaker 1: they don't really do anything at all. Triscad Ecophobic architects
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  Speaker 1: often leave buildings without at floor, while some commercial airplane
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  Speaker 1: as don't have a thirteenth row. Athletes even have their
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  Speaker 1: own rituals and superstitions. They may not change their socks
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  Speaker 1: during an entire season, or eats a bit of grass
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  Speaker 1: off the field before each game. Whatever it is, it's
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  Speaker 1: clear everyone does something to put good fortune in their favor,
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  Speaker 1: and presidents are no exception. William McKinley was a Civil
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  Speaker 1: War veteran and a lawyer. Before he became the twenty
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  Speaker 1: five president of the United States, he worked his way
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  Speaker 1: up in politics, earning a seat in Congress. In eighteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy seven. He had run against the Democratic nominee Levi Lamborne,
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  Speaker 1: beating him by over three thousand votes, a solid win,
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  Speaker 1: but one that had left him earning half of what
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  Speaker 1: he was making with his law practice. Although he and
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  Speaker 1: Lamborne had been political rivals, they remained friends. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: they had become quite close while campaigning the year prior.
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  Speaker 1: Lamborne was a horticulturalist known for growing red car nations.
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  Speaker 1: McKinley often spoke of how lovely his flowers were, so Lamborne,
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  Speaker 1: being the gentleman that he was, made a just of goodwill.
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  Speaker 1: Before one of their debates, he presented McKinley with a
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  Speaker 1: red carnation, which the candidate pinned to his lapel. McKinley
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  Speaker 1: won the debate and then went on to win Ohio's
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  Speaker 1: seventeenth congressional district. He was convinced that the flower had
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  Speaker 1: something to do with it, so he made sure that
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  Speaker 1: whenever he went out on the campaign trail, he had
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  Speaker 1: a red carnation fastened to his lapel, and it worked
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  Speaker 1: when the Democrats tried to jerrymander his district to sabotage
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  Speaker 1: his reelection, he still came out on top. He faced
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  Speaker 1: minor losses after a bit of political skullduggery from the
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  Speaker 1: other side, but eventually went on to become Governor of
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  Speaker 1: Ohio in eighteen two, his famous red carnation always close
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  Speaker 1: to his heart, the ambitious McKinley continued to climb the
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  Speaker 1: political ladder, and with his flower pinned to his chest,
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  Speaker 1: there was no way that he could lose. His friend
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  Speaker 1: and fellow Republican Mark Hannah helped him secure the nomination
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  Speaker 1: for president in eighteen ninety six. McKinley fought a hard
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  Speaker 1: campaign against Democratic candidate William Jennings. Bryan speak into over
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  Speaker 1: seven hundred thousand supporters from his front porch in Canton,
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  Speaker 1: Ohio on the evening of November three. After everyone had
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  Speaker 1: cast their votes, it was clear McKinley would be the
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  Speaker 1: twenty five president of the United States of America, and
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  Speaker 1: he easily won the election for his second term four
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  Speaker 1: years later in nineteen But people loved him well. Most people,
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  Speaker 1: leon Chilgas, saw McKinley as just another rich man exploiting
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  Speaker 1: the working class. He became emboldened by a speech from
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  Speaker 1: anarchist Emma Goldman, who inspired the struggling chole Goas to
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  Speaker 1: make a statement of his own, one that would resonate
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  Speaker 1: around the world. He would kill the President. Meanwhile, McKinley
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  Speaker 1: and his wife had been on a cross country tour
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  Speaker 1: following his inauguration. Their plan had been to visit the
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  Speaker 1: Pan American Exposition World's Fair in Buffalo, New York, before
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  Speaker 1: returning to Washington. However, the first Lady had fallen ill
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  Speaker 1: on the West Coast, cutting their trip short. McKinley rescheduled
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  Speaker 1: his visit to the Expo for a few months later.
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  Speaker 1: His staff was wary of the trip. His secretary actually
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  Speaker 1: tried to cancel it twice. King Umberto, the first of Italy,
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  Speaker 1: had been murdered by anarchists a year earlier, and such
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  Speaker 1: public events were considered too dangerous. Even with heightened security,
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  Speaker 1: The president wasn't worried, though. He trusted his people, and
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  Speaker 1: he had a red carnation pinned to his jacket for
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  Speaker 1: good luck, just like always. On September six of nineteen
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  Speaker 1: o one, McKinley arrived at the Pan American Expo as
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  Speaker 1: he had intended. He loved meeting with people, shaking hands
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  Speaker 1: and talking with everyday Americans. As he made his way
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  Speaker 1: through the crowd, a twelve year old girl walk up
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  Speaker 1: to him. Her name was Myrtle Ledger, and she had
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  Speaker 1: an important question. She asked if she could have his
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  Speaker 1: pretty red flower. McKinley usually carried bouquets of carnations with
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  Speaker 1: him to give out to the public. He even kept
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  Speaker 1: them on his desk in the Oval Office, but on
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  Speaker 1: this day all he had was the single carnation on
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  Speaker 1: his lapel. Not wanting to appear unkind, he unpinned it
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  Speaker 1: and extended it toward her. I'm us give this flower
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  Speaker 1: to another flower, he said, before moving on without his
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  Speaker 1: good luck charm pinto his chest. He climbed the steps
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  Speaker 1: to the Temple of Music Concert Hall as supporters approached
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  Speaker 1: him for handshakes and well wishes. And that's when a
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  Speaker 1: man stepped forward, his right hand shrouded in a handkerchief.
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  Speaker 1: It was choll Goas. McKinley went to shake his left
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  Speaker 1: hand instead, and as they shook, chill Goas fired the
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  Speaker 1: revolver he had hidden under the cloth, shooting the president
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  Speaker 1: twice in the stomach. McKinley didn't die immediately. He underwent
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  Speaker 1: an operation to remove the bullets, but the wound became infected.
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  Speaker 1: Gang green spread to his internal organs, and he passed
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  Speaker 1: away eight days later. To the superstitious, giving away his
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  Speaker 1: carnation was the worst thing he could have done that
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  Speaker 1: day at the expo. However, one good thing did come
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  Speaker 1: out of the tragedy. To honor the late President, Ohio
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  Speaker 1: passed legislation three years later adopting the scarlet carnation as
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  Speaker 1: the official state flower. McKinley might be gone, but thanks
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  Speaker 1: to Dr Levi Lamborne, we can all still catch a
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  Speaker 1: glimpse of his lucky charm. Superstitious or not, I'd call
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  Speaker 1: that curious. It's unwise for employees and dangerous professions to
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  Speaker 1: goof around. It's not just about professionalism either. One wrong
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  Speaker 1: step on a structural beam and a steel worker can
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  Speaker 1: find themselves falling thirty floors in seconds flat. A fisher
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  Speaker 1: who isn't paying attention can wind up overboard or worse.
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  Speaker 1: From truck drivers to loggers, people who work in these
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  Speaker 1: fields need to be at the top of their games
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  Speaker 1: at all times. That goes double for commercial pilots who
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  Speaker 1: are often responsible not just for their own lives, but
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  Speaker 1: the lives of hundreds of passengers flying with them, which
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  Speaker 1: brings us to Alexander Kloyev. Cloye was a pile its
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  Speaker 1: flying jetliners for Russian airline Aeroflot. On October twentieth, nineteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty six, he took eighty seven passengers and seven crew
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  Speaker 1: members on flight six oh two from yaketterine Burg in
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  Speaker 1: Central Russia to Gozni in Czechnia, with a stopover in
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  Speaker 1: the city of Samara. He was accompanied by his copilot,
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  Speaker 1: Kennedy Zernof, as well as a flight engineer and navigational expert.
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  Speaker 1: Each member of the crew was experienced in their field. Cloyev,
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  Speaker 1: in particular, was quite familiar with the kind of plane
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  Speaker 1: he was flying. He had operated numerous times before and
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  Speaker 1: knew what its twin engines were capable of. As the
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  Speaker 1: aircraft approached Samaraklojev dropped down to an altitude of about
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  Speaker 1: thirt feet. His instrument panel lit up like Christmas, so
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  Speaker 1: air traffic control suggested he land using a non directional
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  Speaker 1: beacon approach or n b D, which utilized a radio
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  Speaker 1: transmitter on the ground to send a signal to the plane.
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  Speaker 1: Think of it sort of like how bats fly, where
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  Speaker 1: the signals are bounced around to tell the bat where
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  Speaker 1: it is in space. But Kloyev had descended too fast
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  Speaker 1: and too quickly. The plane sped ahead at one hundred
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  Speaker 1: seventy three miles per hour. Landing alarms blared as air
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  Speaker 1: traffic control ordered the pilot to abort the landing, otherwise
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  Speaker 1: known as a go around, but it was also too
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  Speaker 1: late for that. Kloiev was too close to pull the
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  Speaker 1: aircraft back up. The plane touched the earth so hard
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  Speaker 1: it bounced and flipped upside down, missing the runway entirely.
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  Speaker 1: It skidded along before finally settling. As the airport authorities
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  Speaker 1: and first responders rushed to its location, they pride the
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  Speaker 1: doors opened to find a disaster inside the cabin that
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  Speaker 1: was even worse than what had happened on the tarmac.
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  Speaker 1: Sixty three people had been killed in the crash. Seven
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  Speaker 1: were carefully removed from the wreck and rushed to local hospitals,
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  Speaker 1: but died from their wounds. After the co pilot, Jernov,
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  Speaker 1: was one of the few survivors of the impact. He
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  Speaker 1: managed to help others to safety, but Sadly, his heart
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  Speaker 1: stopped on the way to the hospital. Miraculously, all fourteen
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  Speaker 1: childre and on board the plane had survived, as had Kloiev.
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  Speaker 1: When they interrogated him about the crash, he came clean
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  Speaker 1: about ignoring air traffic control. However, he lied about the
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  Speaker 1: reason for his rough landing, citing it as a failed
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  Speaker 1: training exercise. Eventually, though, the truth came out, and it
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  Speaker 1: earned the disgraced former pilot a one way ticket to
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  Speaker 1: a fifteen year prison sentence. It hadn't been a training
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  Speaker 1: exercise at all. Cloiev had tried the land the plane blindfolded.
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  Speaker 1: He was so sure of his skill in handling the
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  Speaker 1: aircraft he bet his copilot that he could land it
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  Speaker 1: without having to see the ground. Joernov thought he was joking. Surely,
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  Speaker 1: with ninety four souls on board the season Kloiev would
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  Speaker 1: not try something so dangerous, But the man turned out
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  Speaker 1: to be serious and confident. There was no blindfold in
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  Speaker 1: the cockpit, so he had the crew draw the curtains
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  Speaker 1: across the front windshield to block his view of the outside.
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  Speaker 1: When air traffic control tried to assist him in his landing,
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  Speaker 1: he dismissed them choosing only to rely on his instrument panel.
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  Speaker 1: The proximity alarms blared as the plane got closer to
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  Speaker 1: the ground. One crew member through the curtains open in
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  Speaker 1: a panic, giving everyone a glimpse of the tarmac a
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  Speaker 1: mere seconds before impact. Alex Kloyev only served six of
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  Speaker 1: the fifteen years he'd been sentenced to for his stupid
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  Speaker 1: and tragic stunt, and it's viewed by many as an
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  Speaker 1: insult to the families of those who are killed by
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  Speaker 1: his negligions. Most tales of curiosity are a product of wonder,
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  Speaker 1: or invention or lucky coincidence, and I think we can
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  Speaker 1: all agree how fun they are to hear. But sometimes
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  Speaker 1: the most curious thing we can learn is just how
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  Speaker 1: dumb people can be, and how deadly those mistakes end
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  Speaker 1: up becoming. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with How Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
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  Speaker 1: and television show and you can learn all about it
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  Speaker 1: over at the world of lore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious. Yeah,