c152 missing between Hamilton and New Plymouth NZ POB1
 

It's pretty mountainous 35km's west of Te Kuiti and it's now night time.
Hope he ok:eek:

3 News > Home > Story > Search launched for missing plane

CLD AREAS SCT ST 1200 DEVELOPING IN EXTREME SW.
AREAS BKN CUSC 2500 TOPS 7000.
AREAS BKN ASAC ABV 7000 SPREADING FM SW THIS AFTERNOON.
WX ISOL -SHRA, WITH SCT SHRA/RA DEVELOPING IN WEST.
TURB OCNL MOD DEVELOPING, MAY BECOME SEVERE, SIGMET
POSSIBLE.
ICE ISOL MOD ABV 6000 DEVELOPING WITH ASAC.
REMARK TROUGH FROM SOUTHWEST VC NZNP 12Z.

Updated news
 

From the 3 News article:
I hope that's just bad reporting and they didn't actually find the beacon lying on it's lonesome in the bush :ugh:

According to the NZ Herald website, the pilot holds a commercial and is completing an instructor rating.

406's
 

Ain't these compulsory newfandango elba's/eperbs suppose to emit via satellite the a/c's lat & long?

Would have thought they'd know exactly where it is and be hovering over it hours ago (wx permitting).

Very sad news, hopefully he's alright and will be found.
:(

Lineboy4life

As you stated, the weather certainly was'nt suitable.

Anyone else confused by this?

1850 he is overhead Raglan heading to NP but at 1930 the beacon is activated well inland??

So at night, in average Weather, the plane left the coast and flew inland??

Edit: Just saw the news and see the aircraft was found on the coastline near TT not inland.

Not good news :(

Pilot of missing Cessna confirmed dead | NATIONAL News

Condolences to family and friends...

My previous weather statement was in regard to flying into the crash site, not the conditions around the time of the crash.

Only if it is GPS capable. If it's not, then it's up to doppler triangulation, which give something like a 5km radius area.

wx was not permitting in this case, they tried several times

Picture here:

Police name dead pilot as Ben Israel Gaastra | Stuff.co.nz

Only if it is GPS capable

I'm sure he's referring to the new 406.025 beacons

Quoted from the supplier's website.

Condolences to his family and the NP Aeroclub, this is just awful. :(

Codolences to Family and friends
I believe these 406 are obselete shouldnt all aircraft be carrying either TRac Plus or Spider track much superior

Spidertracks is a privately owned company - it is up to the operator to run it in the plane. It has nothing to do with the ELT

406 is the new standard - you can choose to have one with an external GPS input, at extra expense, otherwise the 406 is just more relaible, and more accurate to home in on, the the 121.5/243 ELT

What was a fresh CPL pilot, training for a instructors rating doing flying over pretty rough terrain( or any for that matter), at night in bad weather conditions? To go from North shore to his destination in these unstable weather conditions would be interesting enough during the day let alone in failing light.
Sincere condolances to the pilot, his family and friends and colleagues.

Hughsey I was wondering exactly the same thing, but wasn't sure who was reading this and didn't want to upset anyone.

Will be interesting to hear the outcome. (Apologies to any friends or family, but this is something we can all learn from and lest take heed)

Threeblader - are you a new pilot?

To be fair he wasn't a 'fresh CPL'. Still the choice to go in those conditions will no doubt be a focus of the accident report.

A very sad state of affairs and all the more real when you actually know the person.

RIP Ben.

Getting off topic, but...

406 beacons can be of two types, the first basically just shouts "help". The second uses a GPS feed to say "help, here's where I am".

Without the GPS the position can not be determined as accurately, nor as fast, as it relies on triangulation of the beacon's signal using the doppler shift of the signal as the satellite(s) pass by it. More readings, better accuracy, smaller search area, but it takes valuable time.

The GPS equipped/capable versions are more expensive - but not by much in the scheme of things.

More to the point, why was he doing it at low level, whilst clearly uncertain of his position, and with no radio calls for navigation assistance? It looks to me like CFIT (as no mayday call for a failed engine which you would expect a new-ish CPL studying for an Instructor's rating to have got off).

Being lost at low level in adverse wx is bad enough, but to do it at night...

Yeah, I know, wait for the report... :rolleyes:

"To be fair he wasn't a 'fresh CPL'. Still the choice to go in those conditions will no doubt be a focus of the accident report."

Kiwichick: Cheers for PM

Massey058: Anyone who has a just got his CPL and then about to sit their Instructors still makes anyone (fixed or rotary) a pretty green pilot.
I am sorry for your loss, the longer your in this game......the more mates you may see go. I have been to several funerals ranging from super low time to very experienced.

For everyone here, especially newbies, guys/gals getting upto 500-700 hrs and everyone else. Perhaps having the occasional gander at the CAA Fatal Accident reports is a good idea. They are actually a good learning tool and you may learn somthing that could help you avoid an accident later on.

Cheers

Hughesy

I am sure this was an un-authorised night VFR flight. I very much doubt that the CFI at NP Aero Club would have given the ok for this flight given the weather conditions.

Just because the law does not restrict the distance between lighted aerodromes anymore does not make it a good idea to fly long distance cross country at night VFR.

Night cross country flight should be flown at or above the relevant MSA.

Solid ground can be very unforgiving.

Fair call Hughesy.

I have flown a few hundred hours in one of the most dangerous flying environments in the world where death is a far too regular occurrence. Death here is not taken nearly seriously enough.

Reading accident reports is just good airmanship, something I hope is instilled in all pilots from the beginning of training.

Absolutely agree. Places I have worked have always had this rule. If you couldn't go VFR above the applicable area MSA then you didn't go at all.

Condolences to Ben's family.
Can't work out why he choose to fly in those weather conditions between Northshore and Np, 40minutes from raglan to tairoa pt.:sad:
Rip Ben

but the media from the onset said he was "an experienced pilot", surely that is why the decision was made to fly in such conditions.

shudder the thought if it was someone who went through one of these sausage schools who won't let their pilots fly in vis less than 20km and cloud base below 3000ft thereby teaching them NO experience except they have a commercial licence at the end of it, therefore must be experienced, because their licence says so!!! For f##ks sake.

Conflict - As most people within the aviation industry are aware, the media dont know ass from elbow.

Im a little confused as to what your trying to say here mate. So a pilot from a sausage factory wouldnt have made it as far as this unfortunate chap did before he / she crashed too?
To an extent, especially with CPL's, experience cant be taught, its gained once your out in the big bad world. A CPL is after-all a licence to learn.
This may sound harsh to those who knew him and premature before a full investigation is completed but it looks as though decision making before he even left the ground is where the wheels came off in this situation. Im not saying he was a bad pilot, but he may have just made some bad decisions in the heat of the moment, someting I have done many times in my GA career but was lucky enough to get away with.
My only hope is that any appropriate lessons are learnt, so that the same thing doesnt happen again.

That's a pretty forlorn hope, as these types of accidents happen with depressing regularity.

It is really very simple - if you are going to fly VFR at night (or during the day for that matter), be very sure about the weather and your ability to navigate effectively with the tools that you have, if there is ANY doubt, DON'T DO IT. If you MUST do it, stay above MSA until you have positively identified your destination. If you get lost, CALL SOMEONE.

If the flight was approved, then the CFI or whoever approved it should answer some stern questions. If not, well, unless there was a major mechanical failure, it's yet another case of ego/over-confidence/stupidity.

I know that is harsh, and I'm sure the pilot was a nice guy, but until we start calling these accidents what they are, safety will forever be compromised.

no a 13000 hr fosil

Not approved

Remoak - sad but true.

[QUOTE]
but the media from the onset said he was "an experienced pilot", surely that is why the decision was made to fly in such conditions.


This is an interesting statement conflict. Like ZK- NSN, I am not too sure where you are coming from with this one.

Maybe the "sausage factories" are doing something right if one of thier own pilots was presented with that same situation and decided to stay on the ground that night because, like you said it wasn't 3000ft 20kms +???

Something about using your superior knowledge and judgement to not have to use your superior skill.

Remoak - couldn't agree more

There were jets and turboprops diverting everywhere around weather in the vc of pokom that night.

I have been told this fellows training up to CPL was done at another training establishment. He moved to NP to do his 'C' Cat.

I was being sacarastic. The idea that someone would make a decision to fly a single engine aircraft, at night, VFR, on a x/country into forcast ****e stuns me and can only assume the decision to fly was because he was, as the media lablelled him, "experienced". Hence my sacarasm. My point (perhapes badly written) was that an experienced pilot would in my view have spent the night on the ground. My point about the sausage factories is that because of the self imposed school minima's it is likely that students with their instructors are not flown into adverse conditions and therefore are not shown any techniques in the live enviroment so that when a student PPL or CPL unwittingly gets themselves in trouble at least they have a fighting chance using some of the options available. I think half the trouble is that there are very few career instructors left. Most instructors are hour builders who have been taught by hour builders who have been taught by hour builders and so on. As we all know I could quite easily go from no hours to a CCat in 1 year or less and be teaching with only a few hundred hours under my belt. Where's the experience in that?

It would appear that his CPL/MEIR was indeed completed elsewhere...

Conflict Alert

Absolutely right, it is usually the blind leading the blind when it comes to instructors these days. There are a few older, wiser heads around but not nearly enough of them. It is one of my pet gripes that when those of us that have many years experience, including airline-level check and training, seek to get back into some instructing, we are greeted with a bureaucratic nightmare that not only costs a fortune and takes a long time, but is completely unnecessary. And this at a time when the CAA admit that the experience pool in the instructor population is way too shallow. How about making it a bit easier for us to give something back into the system?

If you went to one of the sausage factories, it is perfectly possible, even likely, to be instructing other CPL hopefuls when you have never actually seen any bad weather up close and personal. That is just crazy.

I'm glad my own training was different - we used to head out to the LFA when the wx was down to 1000'/3km. Only way you ever really learn just what bad wx looks like.

Rest In Peace

remoak

I fully agree with you on weather. It is much better to go out in a "controlled environment" and get used to bad weather rather then have no idea of what to do when you find yourself in the murk.

I agree with remoak....so Ill be off to whack my head against a wall shortly:ok::E;) however, he is quite right with regards to the weather training, or lack thereof....in any event, DAY time bad weather avoidance is one thing, NIGHT time weather avoidance is at best total guesswork, and I can't fathom the decision making process that lead this CPL taking off at night, in a C152, over rough terrain into bad TS, rain and deteriorating wx condx. I cant imagine any school, regardless of minimums for bad wx training and reputations, not mentioning the above would be a pretty poor idea. Lets face it, this was nothing more than extremely poor decision making.

As for CAA being a hindrance remoak....surely you jest!!:E

Nosey

Remoak

I rest my case...you have endorsed what I am trying to say and I hope there are others out there that realise what we are saying.

and Hughesy