Light Aircraft mayday Moreton Island
 

ABC report aircraft declaring Mayday off Moreton Island

AMsar Challenger has flow up from Essendon and is currently searching. Doesn’t look good.

There has been a serial pest up here doing fake mayday calls for a few years, some going for more than 30 minutes with ATC. Lets hope its him again and not a real plane. fingers crossed.

Daylight and 2 copters out searching. One on ocean side of Moreton Island just going up and down the beach over and over ? must see something i guess

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....9362cfa166.jpg

I understand they found debris SE of Cape Moreton late last night, certainly the Challenger was orbiting about a point there. They then expanded the search South, down current. I imagine Rescue 500 is looking for more bits down at the southern end of the island.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5be261f464.jpg

They stopped and winched for about 8 minutes and then moved on with the search. ATM 3 planes searching

This strikes me as a slightly odd one. Had it been a simple engine failure beyond gliding distance of land, I'd have expected a bit more than the terse, but certainly not panicked Mayday issued by the pilot. I know I'd want to let atc know exactly what was happening in the hope that someone would come fish me out of Moreton Bay asap. At usual bay crossing height, they would have had several minutes glide time to get the message out. I guess the apparent high speed impact could be put down to a ditching gone awry, but even that seems like a stretch, other Cessna singles that have gone in (eg. off Byron and Storm Bay) haven't disintergrated to the extent that this one is supposed to have.

You‘re not wrong in your observations. A ditching would have had to go horribly wrong to scatter pieces all over the ocean.

Yep. The final result just doesn’t make sense!

I had a look on the radar and there were showers and low cloud in the area looking at the Jacobs Well weather cameras showed low vis. Perhaps he just got lost in the mist and hit the water ?

They have given a lot of resources for recovery with nothing of substance found so far ?

A wheel ? It takes a lot of force to tear a wheel from a plane so it can float o the ocean.

Shocker tides in that area.

The diver chap that got taken by a shark up north, had his leg found 750 kms away only 3 weeks later. Amazing that anything could travel that far by tides.

Wreckage found
 

I see QPS have located the main wreckage more or less where they expected, NNE of the island. No bodies there though.

Michael's wx scenario makes the most sense so far, although if I read the time correctly, the radar didn't look bad. On an unrelated note, I see that another Cessna, a 206 went for a swim in Qld waters today. This time off Fraser, 2 POB, both fine if a little damp.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....2129364b25.jpg

The weather snap above isnt the right time of the accident me thinks ?

ATSB have the mayday logged at 16:26 on Wed 22/01 which meshes with the media reports of "about 4.30pm", both presumably AEST. I know mention was made elsewhere of heavy rain on the radar loop, but the person posting referred to Tuesday's loop, not Wednsday, so I'm none the wiser.:confused:

There was no visible cloud on the Redcliffe camera that looks in that direction.

Reports said it was very humid though.

ATSB Preliminary Report

Investigation: AO-2020-006 - Collision with water involving Cessna 182, VH-WNR, north of Moreton Island, Queensland, on 22 January 2020

Other than to clarify the weather issue, that report doesn't offer a lot in the way of answers. And that's no reflection on the ATSB, the flightpath after passing Cape Moreton makes very little sense.

There’s a few subtle clues in there including the fact that the engine appeared to not have suffered a catastrophic failure.

If feels like all that is left is:

- Probability of carby icing
- Fuel
- Pilot incapacitation (which seems unlikely given the mayday call)

It feels like we may never know.