Now I’m sad.
I was riding the bus back home a little while ago when I was checking the daily news. Seems that there was more to that plane crash than I first realized.
Early this morning as I was working, I caught myself staring out at the beach as I typically do. This time, however, I immediately saw like 5 helicopters hovering above what I soon realized was just north of the Venice shoreline. Then a couple more showed up and there were a total of 7 helicopters flying around, hovering and looking auspicious.
Something happened.
Not too long after that, the local news station websites started breaking coverage of a small one engine plane having crashed anywhere between 150 and 300 feet south of the Santa Monica Pier. Initially it looked much further away until I saw a webcast coverage from CBS 2 News. This was literally just a a mile or two away.
Well, there’s not much we could see because of being on the 5th floor. Sometimes it would be nice to work up a little higher!
The day passed by and the search and rescue/recovery boats were sending divers out around the area trying to find a 3rd victim. They already pulled out 2 bodies from the bay, a man and a woman.
Not thinking too much of it, except for its tragedy, as I checked out the news tonight I found out that one of the two victims was a host of probably one of my two or three top game shows, Press Your Luck. Peter Tomarken was only 63 years old.
The worst part about this whole tragedy is that Peter and his wife were on their way down to San Diego to pick up a lady who needed medical attention at UCLA Medical Center. They were involved with a volunteer program to help others get from one place to another. The plane’s engine failure was the cause of the plane going down.
Press Your Luck Scandal – This dude actually figured out the system and literally cleaned out the gameshow for almost an hour!
Pilot Episode of Press Your Luck:
The irony of this story is that just a few nights ago on the 14th (and with NO knowledge of the above), we were watching a special on TV about this entire Press Your Luck “scandal”. It was FASCINATING, and Peter was the host. The program also keep having an “in memory of Peter Tomarken” after every commercial, and it gave 2006 as his death date. We kept thinking “hmmm” and “wonder what happened to him”…assuming he must have been sick. Then, during the last 15 minutes of the show, during another commercial, I happened to open our newspaper, and THERE was the article about the plane crash and his death!! It was one of those serendipity moments–so ironic that as we read the article, we were watching the show with him being the look of health………. :( .
I live really near the Santa Monica Airport and my friend just got his pilot’s license there… it was really disturbing to hear about the crash. Peter was an awesome and funny host and I still Tivo his show every morning on the game network. Can’t get enough of those crazy whammy’s!