An early morning jog on the beach with an iPod in tow doesn’t get much more peaceful than that. Unfortunately for Robert Gary Jones, it was anything but.

The 38 year-old husband and father was in South Carolina on business and was excited to return home to Georgia for his daughter’s third birthday. The plane apparently had lost its propeller and smeared oil on the windshield making it hard to see. The pilot made an emergency landing en route to Chesapeake, VA on what he thought was a deserted beach.

Had the plane had flotation devices it might have been able to make a landing instead in the sea, but it obviously was Jones’ unlucky day. It’s been argued the pilot still should have been able to see him but whether or not it would have been in time we’ll never have a way of knowing.