Pilot threatening to crash plane into Mississippi Walmart
 

He will probably be shot down by a couple of F-15s real soon..:ooh:

Judging by the FR24 trace (i know) i doubt they'll be needed :/

Yup, it's either crashed or landed somewhere north of New Albany or FR24 et al have taken it "off air"...
...

Last contact had it descending through 900 feet.

The flight disappeared from FR24 when the views hit 256K. I'm hoping FR24 took it off air to save their service from overload.

Plane reportedly landed safely in Ashland Mississippi, pilot is in custody.

Source article

Happy to be proven wrong!

Off airport "landing"...


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....4ea3289c5.jpeg

Bizarre situation... allegedly, the individual who stole the King Air was not a pilot but worked on the ramp at the Tupelo Airport. He posted on Facebook while in the air... a goodbye to his parents and sister. If not a pilot, I am impressed that he was able to start a turboprop, configure for takeoff, and fly and maneuver for many hours and then make an apparent dead stick landing in a field that was survivable.

…and even switch the beacon and strobes on.

Reported as a student pilot.
Aircraft had flown one hour before this flight.
So did he steal it after a possible dual session, why so easy to take.

I'm genuinely flabbergasted how someone could start up a twin turboprop and fly it if no experience ..

In fact, my gast has never been so flabbered...

Just glad no one got hurt.

In the EU (and UK) a pair of Typhoons would be supersonic and on them within 300 seconds.... or less with wings fully loaded.

So wrong on so many counts...
 

Walmart? Is that the best target he could think of?

I thought the same when a teenager tried to steal a King Air a couple of years ago (https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/...ling-king-air/) but it's actually quite easy to find out. Today's teenagers consult YouTube when they want to find out how to do something and if you look there, you'll find plenty of advice... I suppose most of it is intended for FlightSimmers but given the realism of some Sims it will enable you to fire up the real thing, too. Usually starting a PT-6 is easier than starting a hot fuel-injected piston engine anyway.

Pretty complex...condition levers, ignition switches, fuel flow...not to mention just getting the radios to work...audio panel, avionics master switches etc. Not generally an easy transition even if he was a licensed pilot with C172 time.

Edit: Never mind the radios... apparently he called 911 on a cell phone. But apparently the transponder was squawking 1200 so that involves at least an avionics master, right?

I’ve logged 3000 hours on Kingairs - PT 6 is a relatively easy engine to start and Beechcraft handling requires no special technique. There are numerous videos and sim programs that could be studied so this event isn’t beyond a motivated individual.

Maybe. But if his real intention had been to throw himself into a sopping center then he would have done that in less than those five minutes. The fact that he kept flying around in circles shows that, whatever he had in mind, killing himself and others was not his prime intention. Shooting him down would probably have endangered more people on the ground than just letting him land the plane somewhere in a field.

Yeah, start the PT-6, but cook the engine while you do it?
I seem to remember the max EGT 1080 degrees for 2 seconds on start, or was it less? :ooh:
I still have an occasional dream about not paying attention and over-temping a turbine engine.

don’t you remember this guy?




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