While taking a joy ride in a rural town in Iowa, Lance Rutgers found himself distracted by his new iPhone. As a new user, he was still adjusting to the no-touch keypad and had been texting very slowly over the past few days. He also had to send out hundreds of texts to friends and family to let them know he had recently purchased an iPhone, so they could admire him for his style and taste.

Unfortunately, Rutgers own texting obsession caused him to be highly distracted while landing his plane. As a result, he over shot the runway by about a mile and landed, instead, in a huge corn field.

This is the first known and documented case of a pilot caught texting and flying. Though texting and driving has been well established as a dangerous practice, it is-unfortunately-still a wide spread problem throughout the United States. Texting and flying, however, has remained an untouched issue since most pilots understand the dangers involved.

Experts are afraid that the texting while operating the extremely complex and heavy machinery will become a world-wide phenomenon. As sending text messages becomes more and more second nature, many people may think less of doing it while attempting many every-day activities. This could become a real issue not only with airline pilots, but with construction workers or monster truck drivers or other communities that use expensive and heavy machinery that takes immense training and concentration to operate correctly.

There is even some worry that texting while working will spread to all sorts of jobs that would be greatly affected and harmed by distraction, like actors, teachers, or olympians.

Without knowing what the future holds, citizens can only hope that workers in these and other attention-based professions will maintain their levels of professionalism and concentration in order to continue to do their jobs successfully.