Aircraft missing

[Flash2001]

American media are reporting that an Atlantis Airlines plane with 12 on board is missing. It departed the Dominican Republic yesterday at 1630 hrs. Fox says enroute to New York, CNN says to Turks and Caicos.

[Mercenary Pilot]

Plane en route to NY with 11 on board is missing

4 hours ago
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — A plane en route to New York with 11 people on board disappeared after taking off from the Dominican Republic, authorities said Tuesday.

The Atlantis Airlines plane, which was expected to make a refueling stop in the Bahamas, sent an emergency signal before disappearing from the radar 35 minutes after takeoff on about 3:30 p.m. Monday, said Jose Tomas Perez, director of the Dominican Civil Aviation Institute.

The U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies were searching in the Atlantic Ocean about 4 miles (6 kilometers) west of West Caicos island but has not found any wreckage, said Nick Ameen, a spokesman.The plane, a multiengine Britton-Norman Islander, departed from Santiago in the Dominican Republic, he said.

[Muaskid]

This is now being reported as Britten-Norman BN-2A-III Trislander N650LP en-route from Cibao to Providenciales.

Sad news if it has ditched.

[whyisitsohard]

Sad indeed. I used to fly Tris and not nice to try to get out of in a hurry. Actually, I cant think of much worse.

D

[11Fan]

An Airline "representative :hmm:" suggesting something else.

"That plane apparently was stolen," the Linea Area Puertorriquena Inc. employee, who referred to herself only as Lara. She said the airline was notified of the plane's disappearance Tuesday morning.

The twin-engine aircraft that vanished could have been seized on the ground in the Dominican Republic, according to the airline.

The United States Coast Guard denied that was the case.


11Fan comments: Something is peculiar here.

[Finn47]

Another story suggesting the plane did not belong to Atlantis Airlines but was probably indeed stolen:

The Associated Press: Search for plane in Caribbean; 11 said aboard (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jKTB_IgQRCJkFHUAySULYCVIYzUgD953TU7O1)

Close to the Bermuda triangle, isn´t it?

[OntimeexceptACARS]

Quote:
"The twin-engine aircraft that vanished could have been seized on the ground in the Dominican Republic, according to the airline."

That'll be an explanation then. Somebody forgot to start the third one....

[ldo]

According to the story the pilot was helicopter rated, and he was stripped of his license because he was caught flying multiengine planes

Authorities: Pilot of flight that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle only had student license (http://www.startribune.com/world/36330019.html?elr=KArks:DCiUBcy7hUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU)

From page 2 of the article:

"The pilot who was supposed to fly the plane with Jimenez at his side refused to do so when Jimenez arrived at the airport with 11 passengers, according to Luis Irizarry, an attorney for Perez' company. He said Jimenez then took the plane himself without authorization."

[Finn47]

New story says a pilot with a questionable history, who was considering buying the aircraft, arrived at airport with 11 passengers and took off without permission. He only had a student permit :uhoh:

The Associated Press: Missing plane's pilot had only student license (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jKTB_IgQRCJkFHUAySULYCVIYzUgD954N07O0)

[11Fan]

What amazes me most about this story -if is is accurate- how did he manage to convince these people to go with him?

Sadly, at the loss of eleven, well, twelve lives I guess, another statistic is added to the Bermuda Triangle Saga.

Hmm. Still peculiar on so many levels.

[ChristiaanJ]

11Fan,
By now the a/c is obviously down.
But whether it augered in with an incompetent pilot, or whether it's standing somewhere on a small non-recorded landing strip ready to be ferried to a drug cartel, is still very much an open question....

CJ

[dont overfil]

I thought drug smugglers would aim a bit more upmarket than a Trislander. That said there must be dozens of places in that area to hide an aircraft of that size.
DO.

[Soap Box Cowboy]

11FAN, when was the last time you asked to see a pilots licence and log book before you flew with him?

As for drug running. IF this aircraft flies like it's twin engine sisters then it must be ideal. Get into tiny strips, landing about anywhere and on an interesting note, perhaps flying slow enough not to attract too much attention on search radars. Fly low and slow, say over a railway line and the radar/operator might mistake you for a train. Scooting through valeys or if he has the balls a few feet over the water and something moving that slow would easily be lost in the cluter.

[Avman]

If on a drug run, why carry 11 pax. Sounds more like an illegal alien run.

[old,not bold]

A series of tests by a customer air force on Islanders in the 1970s concluded that when operated in high-ish ambient temperatures the "aircraft should be regarded as a single-engine aircraft and landed immediately following an engine failure". They bought it for its other qualities, but operated it in accordance with that report.

The reason was that they found that regardless of the weight of the aircraft, the remaining engine, at any setting that maintained level flight, overheated within a few minutes.

Strangely, the civilian authorities never picked up on that.

And a Trislander, when called upon to do what the book said after losing power on one engine (centre? wing? not sure) on take-off to the West from Jersey in the 1990s was landed pronto on the beach between the airport and the sea; that was the only viable option available to the pilot. Maintaining height, letting alone climbing, was evidently impossible, according to the reports I read; someone may know of another reason.

[Jofm5]

Old, Not Bold,

The incident you are referring to in jersey where there was a landing on the beach there was indeed an engine failure however this was compounded by the plane being over its maximum takeoff weight to start with.

AAIB report can be found here http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/cms_resources/dft_avsafety_pdf_502177.pdf

Regards,

Jofm5

[old,not bold]

Interesting report, isn't it. Manages to say that the pilot got it wrong without actually saying that.


The aircraft overloading occurred as the result of an arithmetical error on the part of the handling agent but it was too small to influence the overall performance..

I'll buy that, since it was only 23 Kgs over.

But I don't buy the conclusion that, because under different conditions they managed to get a climb of 120 fpm at max weight, the pilot didn't try hard enough, wasn't properly trained and had a mindset anyway to go for the beach, nothing wrong with the aeroplane's performance.

Perhaps I'm too cynical but I see a commercially-influenced report that sought to sweep the known failings of the type under the carpet, because the alternative was to ground the fleet.

I know it's history, but what's not history is the regulators' propensity to that kind of - errr - collusion, because we don't learn.