plane

On Tuesday, pilot Mark Simmons was towing a marriage proposal behind his small plane when he suddenly experienced engine problems and crashed off Rhode Island’s Block Island. Uh oh! We hope this isn’t a bad wedding omen.

Flying the friendly skies is one thing. Being forced to pony up the cash to do it while en route is something else entirely. But that’s what happened on a flight operated by Austria-based carrier Comtel earlier this week.

At lunchtime on Tuesday, New Yorkers in Lower Manhattan were treated to an unusual sight — a small plane buzzing by the Standard and Poor’s building, towing a banner that read, “Thanks For The Downgrade: You Should All Be Fired.” Commissioned by St. Louis banker and single mother Lucy Nobbe, who paid $895 to hire the pilot, the fly-by was a reaction to the US losing its longtime AAA credit rating