Private aircraft crash in Baltic Sea
Not a comment on this specific incident, just something for any “hobby” pilots reading from an ATCO: If you have a pressurisation issue, descend. Don’t worry about me, you don’t even need to warn me, I’ll know what’s going on when I see that FL dropping like a stone, and potentially selected FL in mode S. Just gimme a holler when you are on the way down and have all the more important stuff sorted (like squawking 7700) first.
My grumpier colleagues might get a bit rude, but at least you’ll be alive. Just my 2 cents.
My grumpier colleagues might get a bit rude, but at least you’ll be alive. Just my 2 cents.
The media reporting that describes the pilot as the owner of "Quick Air" is misleading. One smallish division of his business conglomerate is aviation (ambulance flights, MRO), but he was never a pilot-turned-business-owner. This guy was an engineer who owned one of the largest plant construction businesses in Germany with an annual turnover of 150m EUR and 1.500+ employees. This aviation stuff was really just a side-show because he had a personal interest in aviation and at some point in his life when he had money to spare he ventured into that area (one of his sons is running that aspect of the family business, by the way). He had 50 years of flying experience under his belt, sure, but running his business empire did not allow him to fly that much. So yes, he was type-rated, he was sort of experienced, but not necessarily proficient. Looking at the flight history of the aircraft, it was flown typically 2 or 3 times a month (and not necessarily by him). Before the doomed flight, it had sat on the ground at XRY for 8 days.
I’ve personally flown with an individual that had been flying for 20 years and he had the grand total of 250hrs and couldn’t join a traffic pattern at a non towered airport if his life depended on it.
I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting an individual that at the time had 52,000 hrs.
Flown 1000 hrs a year, every year since he turned 18 and got his Commercial.
We all know or should know this is not about hours or years. Proficiency is a matter of recency and repetition.
He may have had a 1000 hrs he may have had 10,000. How many in make and model in the last 360,120,90,60,30 days? How often did he actually fly single pilot? I have a single pilot C525 type rating and have never flown single pilot.
Allow me this question please... Being an airframe built in 79, and non AOC ops, besides the fact MTOM being above 5,7 tons, was or wasn't equipped with a CVR & FDR? Tks
I've been wondering the same. Have tried Google quite extensively but nothing definitive. Hopefully someone will know.
https://www.aircraft.com/aircraft/19...-citation-iisp
If the aircraft can be salvaged then the data cards in the Garmin avionics may provide some insight if the salt water don’t damage them.
Not a comment on this specific incident, just something for any “hobby” pilots reading from an ATCO: If you have a pressurisation issue, descend. Don’t worry about me, you don’t even need to warn me, I’ll know what’s going on when I see that FL dropping like a stone, and potentially selected FL in mode S. Just gimme a holler when you are on the way down and have all the more important stuff sorted (like squawking 7700) first.
My grumpier colleagues might get a bit rude, but at least you’ll be alive. Just my 2 cents.
My grumpier colleagues might get a bit rude, but at least you’ll be alive. Just my 2 cents.
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A pressurisation issue at 35000 feet is a killer item. You make a screaming descent to 10000, tell ATC if you have the bandwidth, and then sort it out. You might need to buy some Jet fuel or take a commercial flight from somewhere but you and your family is alive. My guess: "They will find out that the masks for the passengers came down and the pilot left his seat during AP set to 36000 feet to look after his passengers. Then he passed out too and the plane flew on AP until out of fuel."
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I will say something unpleasant, but it reminded me the PC12 crash in Milan Linate, (old folk with a fast and complex plane): if you have the money to buy and operate this kind of aircrafts maybe you should consider to throw a few bucks in a safety pilot. There's plenty of motivated young cpl's that would kill to seat in a cockpit and they can make the difference between a bad day and killing your family. In smaller and simpler airframes just put tour wife thru the first 10h of the PPL.
"Just my two cents"
evan
"Just my two cents"
evan
I will say something unpleasant, but it reminded me the PC12 crash in Milan Linate, (old folk with a fast and complex plane): if you have the money to buy and operate this kind of aircrafts maybe you should consider to throw a few bucks in a safety pilot. There's plenty of motivated young cpl's that would kill to seat in a cockpit and they can make the difference between a bad day and killing your family. In smaller and simpler airframes just put tour wife thru the first 10h of the PPL.
"Just my two cents"
"Just my two cents"
I also have the same opinion, but regularly receive flak for it... Don't make it a law, no we don't need this. But I wonder why some of those guys do not realize what danger they are exposing themselves to by flying single pilot.
His daughter, flying with him, is said to have been licensed as well.
A complication in busy skies is the advisability of starting a max rate descent immediately after donning O2 masks. Excerpt from 'How To Do Well in the Sim'*:
When you call ‘MAYDAY’, if you're in busy airspace and you can get some sort of ATC clearance before you plummet, so much the better. It would be pointless doing the drill perfectly and then slamming into another aircraft beneath you on the way down. It's unlikely your TCAS will call out sensible RAs, nor those of nearby aircraft. The question is: ‘how long do I spend trying to get an emergency descent clearance before hypoxia begins to affect the passengers and cabin crew?’ And of course no-one can give you an answer – you must use your judgement as to when to start down if ATC can’t help.
This incident is another case of life (sadly) imitating art - the original draft of the novel 'Flight 935 Do You Read' (in which an airliner comes to grief after deliberate interference with the pressurisation system) was written in 1979-80.
*caveat: this article was written several years ago and procedures might have changed in the intervening period.
When you call ‘MAYDAY’, if you're in busy airspace and you can get some sort of ATC clearance before you plummet, so much the better. It would be pointless doing the drill perfectly and then slamming into another aircraft beneath you on the way down. It's unlikely your TCAS will call out sensible RAs, nor those of nearby aircraft. The question is: ‘how long do I spend trying to get an emergency descent clearance before hypoxia begins to affect the passengers and cabin crew?’ And of course no-one can give you an answer – you must use your judgement as to when to start down if ATC can’t help.
This incident is another case of life (sadly) imitating art - the original draft of the novel 'Flight 935 Do You Read' (in which an airliner comes to grief after deliberate interference with the pressurisation system) was written in 1979-80.
*caveat: this article was written several years ago and procedures might have changed in the intervening period.
Discorde
Are you serious? Time of usable conscience may be only 30 seconds. Descent immediate and tell ATC to sort their stuff out if you have the bandwidth. A Mayday with pressurization issue will do. The chances to bang into another plane from 36000 feet to 10000 feet are in all cases low compared to assured death in less than a few minutes. If you have an approved working Oxygen and some redundancy with a second pilot with a second mask and checked O2 flow is a different matter, but in the case of the accident plane an immediate descent is in order. Set the AP to 10000 feet in case you faint and will wake up later. It is similar to an engine failure in a single, You sort first out and make a plan how you get away in the most survivable way and then you talk to ATC.
The wife of the pilot Juliane was on board too and holds a CPL SEP from 1993. Why neither of the two pilots on board where seen in the cockpit remains a mystery. She was not certified for the plane but definitely able to do a descent to 10000 feet.
Are you serious? Time of usable conscience may be only 30 seconds. Descent immediate and tell ATC to sort their stuff out if you have the bandwidth. A Mayday with pressurization issue will do. The chances to bang into another plane from 36000 feet to 10000 feet are in all cases low compared to assured death in less than a few minutes. If you have an approved working Oxygen and some redundancy with a second pilot with a second mask and checked O2 flow is a different matter, but in the case of the accident plane an immediate descent is in order. Set the AP to 10000 feet in case you faint and will wake up later. It is similar to an engine failure in a single, You sort first out and make a plan how you get away in the most survivable way and then you talk to ATC.
The wife of the pilot Juliane was on board too and holds a CPL SEP from 1993. Why neither of the two pilots on board where seen in the cockpit remains a mystery. She was not certified for the plane but definitely able to do a descent to 10000 feet.
Last edited by EDLB; 6th Sep 2022 at 12:09.
Still haven't seen any reports that verify "nobody in the cockpit." (They probably can't verify until maybe wreckage recovery.) There's a big difference between that and "can't see anyone up front" (frosted windows, etc.).
There are contradicting reports. Some say nobody was observed sitting in the cockpit, others claim the opposite.
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Article in danish with video taken from the island of Bornholm, showing the aircraft being intercepted by RDAF QRA.
https://ekstrabladet.dk/krimi/kropsd...rsoeen/9414304
https://ekstrabladet.dk/krimi/kropsd...rsoeen/9414304
I doubt that they were picked up by a tornado and not some eurofighter. They lost comms over Spain and have been accompanied during the flight by several QRAs.