Astrology of the Tesla Plane Crash

On February 17, 2010 the news reported the tragic crash of a 1976 Cessna 310 airplane which had just taken off from the fogged-in Palo Alto airport bound for Los Angeles county. The three passengers did not survive. Although their identities have yet to be revealed, they were all employees of Tesla Motors Company, the Palo Alto maker of the electric car.

Flight conditions were not good on that morning. There was dense fog, which allowed for only one-eighth of a mile in visibility. However, fog is common to that area and planes take off in it all the time.

The event horoscope shows the pilot may have been overly confident in being able to fly in such dense fog conditions. His ruler is Jupiter in Pisces in the twelfth house of self-undoing. He is confident. Venus, also in Pisces, is conjunct Jupiter so things are looking OK, although there are troublesome fog conditions in the sky. In the minutes preparing for the take-off Jupiter and Venus were rising; the pilot felt in control. After take-off, those planets moved into the twelfth house, where no amount of confidence could help. In astrology fog is ruled by Pisces, so it is also appropriate that Pisces is the chart's Ascendant.  Also rising is Uranus, planet of sudden accidents and things happening that are out of our control.

The pilot had filed a flight plan indicating that he would use the instruments on the control panel, so I looked to ruler of third, Mercury, which rules Gemini naturally and serves as confirmation that this event horoscope will be informative. Interesting - and ominous - is the fact that Mercury also rules in this chart the fourth house of endings.

Mercury is in Aquarius which in modern astrology rules flight. It sits atop the twelfth house of suffering and self-undoing. It is opposed by a retrograde Mars in Leo, showing possible malfunction. It is ruled by Saturn, also retrograde, in the seventh house. Why the instruments did not help the pilot avoid flying too low, crashing into power lines and damaging four houses in an East Palo Alto neighborhood is the subject of an ongoing investigation.