Cessna 172 missing over North Sea
 

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Sorry, in Dutch only.

4 people in a Cessna 172 are missing after the plane traveling from Zeeland (the South coast of Holland) to Rotterdam airport disappeared.

Apparently fog could be an issue, as the SAR choppers can´t work either due to the restricted visibility. The coast guard is searching by boats at the moment.

Let´s hope for the best!


###Ultra Long Hauler###

"Over the North Sea" probably doesn't quite summarize their position. They were supposedly flying along the coast, well within gliding distance of land, when they disappeared.

I was actually flying quite close to that area at the time. There was a significant amount of sea fog drifting in. Various aircraft were turning back from the coast one way or another. I was maybe 8 miles inland in severe CAVOK conditions, doing aerobatics up to FL50.

I heard ATC trying to contact the plane, but didn't hear anything about them being missed until I got home. Not that I could have made a difference - I wouldn't have gone into that fog anyway to help locate them.

Latest is that the Cessna has been found, apparently on land (Maasvlakte, an industrial/harbour facility). Four survivors currently trapped in the plane.

They were still over sea………..hence the involvement of the coast guard.
And yes, that would be the North Sea.

Great news indeed!
I hear they are severely injured…………I hope they´ll recover.

Does anybody know the registration?

###Ultra Long Hauler###

PH-SKJ

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3820316/Scre...02%20kopie.jpg

A photo serie I came across. Unbelievable.

De eerste foto's van dichtbij #Maasvlakte #crash

Crap; that's from our club. It was down on the schedule today as flying for an inspection by the people we're leasing it from...

Katamarino, please get your priorities right, aircraft can be replaced, people can't. :mad:

Calm down; I was merely mentioning what flight it was down for. My extra concern about it being from our club was due to the chance that the poor people might be closely know to us. I couldn't give two hoots about the condition of the aircraft, as long as it provided enough protection to pull the occupants through alive.

Fair enough, it just didn't come over that way to me - sorry for that. Hope they will all be OK.

Astonishing how totally smashed up it is, considering it was an open beach.

Did they descend into it in zero visibility?

Pehaps that was in the rescue attempt?

Earlier in this thread it mentioned that people were trapped inside, so presumably the aircraft was cut apart to rescue them.

Do we have any idea why the aircraft came down?

Current speculation (and of course, it is only speculation at this stage) was that they ran into sea fog. This would suggest loss of control after inadvertantly entering IMC. Given the terrain around there (coastline with wide, flat, open beaches), spatial disoriantation is the only explanation I can come up with for such mangled wreckage (other than a control failure, I suppose). If this was indeed the cause, they are probably lucky to be alive at all.

If there was decent visibility, an engine failue or most any other mechanical issue would be a complete non-event almost anywhere in Holland. The country is so flat and open, you're always spoilt for choice with regards to an emergency landing.

Let's hope the people involved can report what happened themselves very soon.

Sigh :( Even if it's just speculation, this is such a terrible thing and could be avoided by requiring a little bit of IMC training for a PPL. Most PPL instructors don't have an IR and you get told how terrible IMC is, how little chance you stand as a PPL, etc. I never dared getting even close to clouds and was in total awe when I started my IR. Turned out it's not a big deal at all, stay calm, look at your instruments.

IMC training and IR rated FIs should be mandatory for every PPL. Unusual attitudes under the hood should be equally mandatory.

IF this was the cause then it is all the more sad given the excellent visibility just a few km from the coast (as Backpacker reports, he was doing aerobatics in perfect IMC just a few km away), and also given the perfect flatness of the Dutch countryside. There's not even any terrain to hit.

Naturally we know almost nothing right now though, so it's entirely possible that another more unusual failure led to the accident. It will be very interesting to see the official report, and see if there's anything to be learnt.

Three hours under the hood, including recovery from unusual attitudes, are required in FAA land.

Most PPL instructors don't have an IR

Are you saying that most Euro trained PPL have limited instrument/IR/Unusual attitude training??

... and FAA CFIs have an IR. Not so common over here.

I wound up "inadvertantly in IMC" once before I got my IR. It was extremely disorientating, and I can understand how easily people lose control. It took a huge amount of self control to stay calm and apply the 180 degree turn learned in training; and that was after a good 5+ hours IMC training post PPL with the RAF reserves. I don't think the PPL training would have been enough, which is a very sobering thought.

Assuming all pictures in the gallery linked to a few posts upstream are related to this incident, it looks like they impacted a building prior to touch down, seriously damaging it and causing at least one apartment to catch fire.
What damage to the aircraft wasn't caused by the initial impact itself is most likely due to the very hard landing that must have followed.

Wishing a speedy and full recovery to all involved,

DG800

The building is nothing to do with the crash.

... and HM Coastguard too, in Sikorsky G-BIMU.

If they landed where I think they landed (and all reports seem to suggest so) then there is no building or any other substantial structure to hit whatsoever over there.

The Rotterdam Port Authority is reclaiming a significant amount of land from the sea, intended as extension to the Rotterdam Harbor. We fly over that area regularly (in fact my aerobatics sortie yesterday was planned right over there, until I learned about the sea fog and decided to move a few nm inland). At the moment all the sand has been put up and they are working on the harbor wall structures. There are also a few (temporary I assume) roads visible that I have considered as an emergency landing site (in case of an aeros mishap for instance).

But the worst you can hit is construction equipment like cranes, lorries and such, and those are not parked in the middle of the sandy areas, but along the edges. Especially on a public holiday.

Here's the information site. The picture on the front page gives you a pretty good idea on what it looks like today. Home

It also helps not only to have IR or IMC training under VMC conditions, but to be actually in the clouds and experience that. It's a big difference to flying 'under the hood'

Agree! However, it's illegal. In order to penetrate the clouds, you have file an IFR flight plan. In order to do that your instructor needs to be an IR instructor and you have to be registered as an instrument student.

My instructor has done it to practice 180° turns and to get a feeling (very different thing doing this under the hood in VMC or in a turbulent cumulus cloud). I'm very thankful for the experience but he was breaking the rules. Stupid!

Not in the UK.

And you don't need an IR to file an IFR flight plan.

You can be quite legal flying in and out of cloud not speaking to anyone. In fact nobody would know you were even in cloud.

And alot of instructors in the UK have an IR or have had one because instructing really wasn't there first choice after getting a license. But as nobody will let them fly a shiny jet they did that instead.

Nice aerial picture from the crash site (taken april 2012)
http://www.maasvlakte2.com/cache/434...f51ba807e.jpeg

So as you can see, it is really difficult to find something high to hit....

You are talking about the UK IMC I suppose?

Yeah, I imagine a great summer day with one nice cumulus cloud next to the airfield and several CFIs deciding to practice. Around here, there would also be the zillion of gliders jumping at that cumulus cloud and those guys are even allowed to fly inside the cloud. The "not speaking to anyone" part makes it even more interesting. :)

Germans in particular find the UK IFR Class G rules particularly hard to accept :)

IFR in Class G is illegal there.

The reality is that the UK, with its GA community approximately same size as Germany and bigger than France and bigger than perhaps the rest of Europe put together, and with a long established culture of flying IMC non-radio, has had zero mid-airs in IMC since WW2. 1-2 a year in VMC, usually near airfields or with people doing silly low level stuff.

Emotionally this concept is hard to accept, of course. But safety regulation should be based on data, not emotion.

You are right that you need an IR instructor and need to fly under an IFR plan, but i am not sure about your last remark

If this was a case of disorientation in seafog I am curious as to why the pilot did not climb prior to entering it or flew inland for that matter.
Anybody familiar with the airspace above that area?
Do we know anything about the experience level of the pilot? PPL? CPL?

Hard to accept that it's not allowed over here. Common European rules should solve that once and for all (not being sarcastic).

In the UK, can you just take out your plane at your uncontrolled airfield and decide to go up penetrating clouds in airspace G? Without having filed an IFR flight plan and without the goal of flying IFR?

Very. Right there it's class G to 1500' (which was roughly the top of the fog layer), then class E (Rotterdam TMA) to FL55, then class A. So right there there would not have been an airspace issue if they would have climbed.

However, just a few miles North (the direction they were heading) the Schiphol TMA (class A) starts at 1500', and the Hotel arrival into Rotterdam starts there, also at 1500', so it's uncommon to be much above 1500' over there, considering their direction of travel and destination.

I was aerobatting in the Rotterdam TMA, and heard Rotterdam approach trying to contact the PH-SKJ. However there was no indication whatsoever that there might've been something wrong. Just a routine 'are you on this frequency?' call.

As long as you are rated to fly in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (ie you have a UK IMC or an IR): Yes.

Of course, you would be silly to do this without checking the freezing level and MSA, and most people would recommend that if there is any chance of encountering VFR traffic on the other side, you should be in receipt of a radar service (in practice a traffic or deconfliction service - another UK oddity). Finally, if you're cruising above 3000ft you need to be flying a quadrantal level (yep, another UK speciality).

Yep and if you don't speak to anyone nobody will know you have done it.

You can also do the yo-yo between IFR and VFR if you like as well.

Or pitch up out side CAS and request a IFR arrival if you so wish. Be you VFR or IFR without a plan up until that point.

The only time you need a flightplan in the UK is if you want to use the airways system or cross an international FIR or you are over 5700kg.

The ATS in class G though is very strange as well. I wonder if that !!!!e will be put to bed as well with EASA?

Not in the UK. You can fly using IFR in VFR conditions without either an IMC or an IR.

As has been dicussed previously, according to the EASA Aircrew Regulation (Regulation (EU) No. 1178/2011) JAR-FCL licences became Part-FCL licences on 8 April 2012, and in accordance with Part-FCL the holder of such a licence requires an Instrument Rating (IR) to act as pilot in command on an IFR flight.

So you can't fly under IFR without an IR unless perhaps if you have an old UK PPL or you have some sort of instrument rating (IMC / IR).

Its been pushed back.

You can, but you can't fly IFR in IMC.

DX err its the only thing you can be in IMC