Light plane missing in blizzard in Scotland (Merged)
 

Report on BBC Scotland website.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/...ds/7332294.stm

Good luck to all involved, hoping for a benign outcome on this.

Light aircraft missing in the Highlands
 

Just heard on the beeb, a light aircraft missing in the Highlands. Hope all turns out well.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/...ds/7332294.stm

http://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/112383/diff/3/4

says it s a PA32 Saratoga

worries.....

Anybody in Scotland with more news?

I also hope this turns out well but it has to be said that the poor weather was widely forecast. It was not a day for flying light aircraft.

ITN news reports sighting of aircraft heading south and an explosion shortly afterwards.
Prognosis not good.
Thoughts with the family
Ed

Teletext states: Carlisle to Wick single occupant.

Despite reports of an explosion, the search area is 50sq mls.

Does not look good

The Metform 215 today spelt wrong day for crossing Scottish high ground. I was about to cross the Cairngorms myself southbound in a light aircraft but thought better of it and stayed indoors. The downdraughts the terrain produces there is bad enough without +TS and +SHSN thrown in to the mix. Although isolated, these storms were passing violently for 10mins every hour nearby the area in question.

The weather here north of the cairngorms was absolutely awful yesterday. Snow, strong northerly winds, solid cloud everywhere, severe icing conditions, you name it...., I cant imagine why anyone would have ventured out in a light aircraft knowing what the conditions were.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...14X00183&key=1

Any similarity?

Some really crappy reporting as usual:

One aviation expert speculated that as the plane was US registered, the pilot may have planning to re-fuel in Wick, the Faroe Isles and Reyjkjavik as he flew across the far north of the Atlantic.

Based on the Cairngorm summit overnight weather from Heriot Watt Uni

Low of - 7 combined with winds steady of 30mph with gusts up to 60!

Windchill equivalent is minus 20. :sad:

From the Metoffice Even the valley floor at Avimore was -1 with gusts up to 30mph.

I remember a similar incident a few years ago when an American registered Cessna with 4 on board hit the summit of Ben Macdui in poor weather, in this incident all 4 SOB survived, I remember the incident well as I had been talking to the flight prior to handing it off to Lossimouth radar......the following is a report from the Mountain rescue team.........
Grampian crash report
An official report into a light aircraft crash in the Grampian mountains said the survivors were fortunate to be found alive by rescue teams. Four people escaped from the wreckage of the Cessna 172 plane after it came down above Glen Callater, near Braemar in January. The aircraft had been travelling from Peterborough to Inverness when it crashed 3,000ft up a mountain after flying low to escape ice forming on the wings.
Mark Peacock (22), and his girlfriend Judy Laidler (19), escaped with minor injuries while pilot Stephan Broughton (53), and his 38-year-old co-pilot who did not want to be identified, suffered broken bones.
After the crash the survivors walked about a kilometre in freezing conditions until they found a cove where they huddled together for warmth. They had all been close to giving up when they were spotted by an RAF helicopter and flown to hospital. All four were suffering from mild hypothermia due to a lack of appropriate clothing for the extreme weather conditions. The air accident report stated that Mr Broughton, from Ipswich, had thousands of hours of flying experience. It confirmed that the Cessna aircraft had no de-icing capability.
The report said that there was initial confusion over the location of the crash from the Cessna's emergency beacon. The survivors were found walking away from the beacon, which was their only location aid.
The report concluded that their chances of survival were slim as temperatures began to plummet with the onset of darkness. It adds: "When rescued they were already suffering from mild hypothermia. Sunset that evening was 4.26pm after which the chance of locating the survivors would have been remote. They would then have been forced to spend the night on the hills in extreme conditions without appropriate clothing, protection or any location aids." An RAF spokesman said the case highlighted the importance of light aircraft carrying emergency beacons. Aviation journalist Jim Ferguson said: "It was absolutely unbelievable that they survived, they were very, very lucky indeed. The report confirms what we knew. The plane flew into cloud, it wasn't supposed to and the report does not make it clear why. The pilot had an awful job keeping control and he crash-landed on the slope.''

A good job it was an "American registered Cessna" then because a UK registered Cessna (which of course has superior de-ice capability :ugh: ) has no mandatory ELT carriage.

STV news has just reported the search has been called off following the discovery of wreckage and a body 1km south of the Cairngorm ski area. Very sad news. The web sites have not been updated to match this report yet (17:00 local time).

The BBC one has now:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/...ds/7332901.stm

Very sad news.

Just to put one fact straight, IO540. If you are talking about the previous accident with the 172, it was a newish UK reg aircraft and they come with approved ELTs fitted.

http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/cms_resou...pdf_500225.pdf

IO540, another thing to ponder might be whether a machine operating on a flag of convenience, far from the reach of the regulatory authority which ensures its airworthiness, ensures the standards kept by its maintainers to keep it airborne, ensures its pilot is proficient, etc, confers any benefits in terms of safety, over a machine honestly operated in its state of registery.

This is not a comment on the accident reported above, just a remark for IO540 to think about...

Very sad news.

..."Must not let news stories like this put me off my PPL"...

liam548

Please don't let it put you off your PPL, but please do learn from it.

— Captain A. G. Lamplugh, British Aviation Insurance Group,

Liam,

Don't be put off. One of the great things about aviation is that through the AAIB reports we all have a chance to learn by other people's mistakes. After all, there isn't time for us to make all the mistakes ourselves.

20/20 Hindsight is a wonderful thing. As aviators we need a bit of foresight too. I was planning a trip to Glasgow on Sunday from the deep south, returning Monday. I have a seriously capable, IFR, de-iced, twin engined aeroplane but I took the decision on Friday to cancel the trip given the forecast which had been talked about for almost a week on the BBC. I am not put off by bad weather, but I just thought that this was too much.


I don't know what equipment this particular aircraft had or what the pilot had planned to do or indeed why he was so keen to make the trip. Some of that will come out in the report.

Once you have your PPL, there is a whole lot more to learn that will help in the decision making process, but picking up ice, in lowering cloud over a mountain range is not somewhere any of us would want to be.

However, I always tell my friends that the most dangerous part of any flight is the drive to the airport. Don't be put off by this incident. GA is one of the safest activities around, its just that when it sadly goes wrong it becomes headline news. How many families have been affected by road accidents this wekend I wonder? So many its not newsworthy anymore.

Condolances to the family of this particular pilot, as it nearly could have been any of us.