Pilot threatening to crash plane into Mississippi Walmart

[Compton3fox]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/03/pilot-plane-walmart-mississippi-tupelo

[TowerDog]

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

[hobbit1983]

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 :/

[treadigraph]

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

[hobbit1983]

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.

[LongJohn54]

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

[Carbon Bootprint]

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

Source article (https://www.nola.com/news/article_dafa6d1a-2b9c-11ed-8aec-c77db6215c17.html)

[hobbit1983]

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

Source article (https://www.nola.com/news/article_dafa6d1a-2b9c-11ed-8aec-c77db6215c17.html)

Happy to be proven wrong!

[ETOPS]

Off airport "landing"...


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/800x400/1662224553_ba3c53331158047cb0776adcc1f18ef4ea3289c5.jpeg

[Lake1952]

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.

[Lew747]

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.

[BigEndBob]

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.

[fokker1000]

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.

[70 Mustang]

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

[Alpine Flyer]

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...



I thought the same when a teenager tried to steal a King Air a couple of years ago (https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/teen-arrested-for-stealing-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.

[Lake1952]

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?

[ETOPS]

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.

[what next]

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

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.

[TowerDog]

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.

[NutLoose]

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.

don’t you remember this guy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DstWZY_eUOc

https://youtu.be/caFIrBXtSxs

https://youtu.be/IY0EUs_8Ubo

.

[Bksmithca]

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.
I understand where you coming from as a pilot but your talking about a individual stealing an airplane and threatening to level a Walmart. I'm guessing the last thing he was worried about was overheating the engines

[wrench1]

No mystery. Guy had student ticket but not current however flew on occasion with local pilots/CFIs to include on this aircraft. High time local pilot talked him down into field. Young man has some issues to deal with and this episode caught all who knew him way off guard. Glad it worked out in the end. Don't think it was too outside his skill set to get it started and take off.

[West Coast]

My 18 yr old starts engines on various jets daily on his flight sim, to include mine. The sim ensures you do it correctly or FADEC aborts the start, just like the real aircraft. Perhaps this young man had opportunity to learn to start the PT6 the same way.

[TowerDog]

I understand where you coming from as a pilot but your talking about a individual stealing an airplane and threatening to level a Walmart. I'm guessing the last thing he was worried about was overheating the engines

Yes of course..
Cooking a hot section was the least of his worries.
My comment was rather that any monkey could get an engine started but it may be useless in the near future.

[Antsl]

I'm curious as to how they are going to recover this aircraft from the field... my guess is they are not going to fly it out!

[megle2]

Hard to tell if it was a old 90 or 100. Didn’t the old 90’s have glow plugs

[treadigraph]

It's a 1987 C90A...

[Alpine Flyer]

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:

Of course you do pay attention to the ITT limit on start but how often does it really move even close to that? I must have watched almost several thousand PT-6 start sequences and maybe had one or two go hot and require a fuel shut-off outside of a Sim. Chances are probably much higher if you don't use a GPU but as said above, that guy probably would not have cared and a momentary exceedance of even a 100 degrees probably won't kill the engine.

Thinking about that: are there any non-EFIS transport airplanes that use Fahrenheit for ITT? Do US based planes use Fahrenheit for oil temperature?

[wrench1]

I'm curious as to how they are going to recover this aircraft from the field...!
In this case, depends on the insurance company. My guess given the age/type of aircraft the engines will be pulled then the wings and tail cut off and moved by easiest means to where it can be trailered. There are other options especially if someone has bought any salvage right.

[inbalance]

In the EU (and UK) a pair of Typhoons would be supersonic and on them within 300 seconds.... or less with wings fully loaded.
Thats nonsense.
They wouldn’t even be in the air after 300 seconds.

[phantomsphorever]

While I agree that 300 sec is probably not realistic in this scenario, there is a QRA readiness state of 5 min.
During times of tension, this state may be applied and in that case the scrambled Quick Reaction Alert aircraft must be in the air within 300 secs.

[flyinkiwi]

Not generally an easy transition even if he was a licensed pilot with C172 time.


Being a licensed 172 pilot who doesn't flight sim, I'd probably be caught and arrested before I found the right section in the flight manual pertaining to engine start procedures. :}

[Lake1952]

From this video, the plane had its gear down and was doing apparently quite well until it hit the ditch. The landing gear appears to have snapped off at the ditch. This is a 1987 build... I strongly suspect it's a total loss.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2JmZpNVyRqU