The warning panel said something was wrong with the plane’s landing gear so a helicopter volunteered to fly up close to check.

The plane, carrying U.S. Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., and the copter trying to help, crashed. Both slammed into a suburban Philadelphia schoolyard below. Seven people, including the crews, school children below and Heinz, died instantly. He was just 52.

To perform this maneuver over a school yard full of elementary school kids was foolish and idiotic.

Heinz may have been just 52 but the kids who died were just 6 years old.

And to pull a stunt like that remains legal to this day.