Bouquet Toss Causes Plane Crash

The bride wanted to do something unique at her wedding reception so she decided to have the bouquet toss occur from an airplane. The couple rented a small Autogiro to fly over the reception at a particular time with a friend in the passenger seat to toss the bouquet to a group of single women waiting below. (An Autogiro is a Spanish-designed rotary-wing aircraft that uses a propeller for forward motion and a rotating, unmotorized rotor on top for lift. The plane looks much like a cross between a small two-passenger aircraft and a helicopter.)

As the passenger tossed the bouquet, wind pressure caused it to fly backwards into the tail rotor, causing the plane's engine to catch fire and explode and the plane to crash. As the horrified wedding guests watched, the plane crashed into woods near a youth hostel where 50 children were staying. Both the pilot and the passenger survived, but the bouquet tossing passenger suffered facial and head injuries and two broken legs.

Moral of the story - be careful about including activities in your event that could in any way be dangerous. The bride, her friend, and the pilot probably never considered that the bouquet wouldn't drop straight down. What was intended to be a unique ending to the reception may cost the couple thousands when all the damage and medical bills are totalled.