That Was a Silly Idea Trivia Quiz

Answer: They were having sex instead of flying the plane

One would have thought that flying a plane required most of your concentration but apparently our ex-pilots disagreed. Unfortunately, far from the earth moving for them, it stood resolutely still as the plane hit it. What a way to go!

Answer: He was underneath it doing repairs as it was driven down the highway

This really is hard to believe but apparently true. Perhaps a thought popped into his head - "Ah, that's what the problem is. If I just tap it with a hammer it will probably fix it!" Unfortunately the following thought - "Perhaps I should wait until the vehicle stops" came a little late.

Answer: A tiger cage in the zoo

BBC News reported on the sad end of this man who, fleeing arrest, jumped a fence into the tiger cage in Bloemfontein Zoo. Bad idea.

Answer: He buried some unstable dynamite creating a home made landmine.

A man found old dynamite in a stable near his vineyard and he decided to bury it. He was a former army explosives expert, so you might think he would have known better. Having dug a hole, put in the unstable sticks of dynamite he thought the pile was uneven so he patted it down with his hands. Boom.

Answer: He tied a shopping cart to his belt and his friends launched him into a lake

Just a few hours after graduating from high school, a teenager and his friends went to the lakeside to party for a few hours. He was tied to a shopping cart and flung into the lake by his friends and drowned in 30 feet of water.

This game, dangerous as it is, is normally played by tying the cart to a log or other weight on the dock and the person sitting in the cart gets wet when they are catapulted into the water. This variation was never going to go well.

Answer: He dipped his gum in an explosive chemical and blew his jaw off

The student was working at home when a loud noise was heard. His relatives went to his room and found the body of the 25-year-old. According to the Russian news agency, subsequent forensic tests found there was a chemical on his chewing gum which looked to be some type of explosive.

It seems the young man was in the habit of dipping his gum into citric acid and may have confused it with another (explosive) substance he happened to have lying on his desk. When he chewed the gum the result was not good!

Answer: Trying to get a chicken out of a well.

In 1995 six people died when they went down a sixty-foot well to try to rescue a chicken that had fallen down. When the first farmer didn't come back up he was followed by his sister, then two brothers and then two elderly neighbours. None of them could cope with a current in the water. The only survivor was the chicken.

Answer: A plane about to land on top of him.

Near Sao Paolo in 1997, a man listening to his walkman through headphones while cycling across an airport runway was hit and killed by a landing airplane.

Answer: He dug a hole so deep that it caved in and buried him.

The 1997 Darwin Awards tell of this young man in North Carolina who died when an 8-foot deep hole he dug caved in on him. He was sitting on his chair at the bottom when it collapsed and was buried by several feet of sand. Despite frantic efforts by other people on the beach he could not be rescued in time.

Answer: A live hand grenade

The accident occurred when the man tried to spot weld a live grenade to the end of a chain attached to a broom. This home-made solution to getting at the awkward spots in a chimney led to an even more awkward explosion and the chimney remained uncleaned.