ST. LUCIE COUNTY — Massad Ayoob said he didn't have time to think of dying, as the small helicopter he was in plunged.Seconds before, the internationally known firearms expert and his hunting companion Jonathan Strayer were 100 feet up in the air, intent on following a wild hog they spotted below.The "oinker had run under the canopy of some tall pines," Ayoob recalled Monday, when, suddenly, the helicopter engine lost power near the Okeechobee County landfill about 8 a.m.The trip started as an adventure and as a test of marksmanship for the two Live Oak pals: a .44-caliber Magnum revolver in a moving aircraft versus a quick-moving hog, an animal ranchers consider to be a nuisance because they dig up the ground, destroying farmland.They arranged the hunting trip, taking off from private land, and hunting on private property at the Okeechobee-St. Lucie county line. There are no restrictions on hog-hunting on private land, said Carli Segelson, spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.The crash happened north of the landfill and just inside St. Lucie County and west of Adams Ranch near a private landing strip.The group was only in the air a few minutes when the helicopter sputtered.The rotor blades hit tall pine trees, fracturing the blades and sending them and wood splinters flying.Instinctively, the 64-year-old Ayood bent down, fearing the whirling debris would shoot at him through the small clear, plexiglass cockpit in which he, Strayer, 46, and pilot William Harward, 55, of Miami, were huddled.With the blades gone, the aircraft could only drop into the wooded terrain below.His emotions churned, Ayood said, during 10 seconds of terror when they realized they were going down.The aircraft ended upside down as it crashed, bashing the cockpit dashboard against the pilot's helmet-covered head."We ended up nose down and kinda upside down" in the cockpit, Ayoob said. It was only then — as they unbuckled their four-point harnesses — that there was time to be scared "and grateful to be alive," he said.They had "cuts, bruises, pulled muscles and stiffness, but since none of the stiffness involves rigor mortis, ain't none of us complaining," he said. "All of our body parts were there."Read more: http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/region_st_lucie_county/massad-ayoob-jonathan-strayer-william-harward-helicopter-crash-survivors-grateful-to-be-alive#ixzz2Pu67CvNx
