Sigh, sigh, and more sigh...
NTSB Prelim report said:
According to information provided by representatives from Lockheed Martin (LM) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), on the morning of the accident, the pilot obtained his initial telephone weather briefing about 0920 MDT. About 1040, he telephoned again, obtained an abbreviated weather briefing, and filed an IFR flight plan.
...
Both weather briefings included AIRMETs (Airmen's Meteorological Information) for mountain obscuration, turbulence, and icing along the planned flight routes and altitudes.
OK, there's no-gos #1 and 2: The mountains aren't gonna be visible, there's turbulence (which in mountainous terrain is an indication of Bad Stuff near the rocks)... And, there's icing which is bad at any altitude with a laminar-flow wing like the Mooney has, but is REALLY bad at higher altitudes when performance is already limited. In addition, surface temp at takeoff time was 0ºC.
It also looks like the AIRMET was right on:
About 1341, the pilot filed a pilot report via radio, which stated that he was at 14,000 feet, and was encountering light chop, and a trace of rime icing.
...
Shortly before that [1352], the pilot radioed to ATC that he was unable to maintain altitude due to mountain wave activity.
Also, they were in an area of poor to no radar coverage:
The first radar target was recorded about 1309, and the airplane was tracked until about 1336, when it was at an altitude of 14,000 feet... The airplane was re-acquired by ground radar about 1346, still at the same altitude. About 1352, the last radar target associated with the airplane was recorded, with an indicated altitude of 13,300 feet.
Unless I'm mistaken, operation in controlled airspace in a non-radar environment is not supposed to be on a direct point-to-point routing, is it? Separation would be rather difficult otherwise...
Now we also at least know what was filed - Two different flight plans:
The flight plan included a planned departure time of 1130, and a destination of Rapid City Regional Airport, (RAP) Rapid City, South Dakota. The filed route of flight was Dunoir (DWN) very high frequency omni-range (VOR) navigation facility, Boysen Reservoir (BOY) VOR, Muddy Mountain (DDY) VOR, and then direct to RAP.
About 1237, the pilot used the internet to file another IFR flight plan, which again specified JAC as the origination airport. The filed departure time was 1247, and the filed route was DNW VOR, Riverton (RIW) VOR, DDY VOR, Newcastle (ECS) VOR, Rapid City (RAP) VOR, and Philip (PHP) VOR. The destination was Pierre Regional Airport (PIR), Pierre, South Dakota, and the filed altitude was 9,000 feet.
Then, there's the one off Flightaware. So, the three routes were:
1) DNW BOY DDY RAP (1st filed)
2) DNW RIW DDY ECS RAP PHP (2nd filed)
3) TETON3 KICNE RIW DDY ECS RAP PHP (FlightAware)
On route (1), 9000 feet isn't OK until the last 17 miles before the RAP VOR, and even the airway from DWN to BOY has an MEA of 14,000.
Route (2) would be better, and very close in distance to (1) except for the part from RAP to KPIR. 9000 would be OK for most of this route, starting at ROWEY (63 after DNW, 31 prior to RIW) and thereafter having only one chunk with an MEA of 9300 from ECS to ZAMBI (40nm).
I wonder if he decided to add some fuel to make the extra distance to KPIR instead of KRAP, and that affected performance?
Also, the FlightAware route (3) would have come from the FAA feed - I wonder if he was originally planning on flying the GEYSER FOUR instead, since both of his filed routes went from DNW, and ATC gave him the TETON THREE with his clearance. I'm also thinking that since he turned off the DP at KICNE, maybe ATC asked him what he was doing and he asked for direct RIW.
The ATC transcripts are sure going to be interesting.
One final thought: The timing of the call from ATC to climb will also be interesting, but one thing that I didn't notice at first (and I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet) was that radar contact was lost for 10 minutes - and looking at where that happened, radar contact was regained only about 4 minutes prior to where the plane would have been crossing the highest peaks. Even if ATC had warned him right away at that point, he'd have been dangerously low.
The only good thing is...
The wreckage exhibited significant crush and impact damage. The right wing was partially fracture-separated from the fuselage, and the propeller blades were fracture-separated from the propeller hub. All components were located within 20 feet of the main wreckage.
... They came down hard and didn't suffer.
Been there a couple of times, done that, don't want to do it again!
