Crashed PA-32 Found but no people??

dell30rb

dell30rb

Final Approach
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Ren
Here's an odd story...

Beacon went off in a PA-32 that crashed locally this morning, apparently the CAP found the wrecked aircraft but no sign of any passengers or a pilot.

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/10005694/

Possibly it was stolen... or pilot was intoxicated, or maybe he was disoriented and wandered off + got lost

Personally i think bigfoot got him.
 
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Probably belongs to DB Cooper. He probably ran through the $200,000 real quick and needs the insurance money by now.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
That's... Odd all right.
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PA-32 pilots are not odd! I resent your attack on people who want a capable aircraft with an awesome payload. It's comments like this that show how biased the people on this board are. :mad::D


Maybe the pilot just left because he/she was embarrassed for crashing such an easy-to-fly airplane.
 
dell30rb said:
Here's an odd story...

Beacon went off in a PA-32 that crashed locally this morning, apparently the CAP found the wrecked aircraft but no sign of any passengers or a pilot.

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/10005694/

Possibly it was stolen... or pilot was intoxicated, or maybe he was disoriented and wandered off + got lost

Personally i think bigfoot got him.
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Update to that link reports it was stolen from Chapel Hill between 9pm Monday and 6am Tuesday.
 
COFlyBoy said:
Keep on diggin' that hole. I'm setting up to let loose an unholy torrent of forum flame!
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(advisory: note what type Ed flies...)
 
SCCutler said:
(advisory: note what type Ed flies...)
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He flies a PA-23 which is the evil antithesis of the PA-32.

Edit: Ah crap. I just checked and the Comanche is the PA-24 which makes the joke less funny.
 
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COFlyBoy said:
PA-32 pilots are not odd! I resent your attack on people who want a capable aircraft with an awesome payload. It's comments like this that show how biased the people on this board are. :mad::D


Maybe the pilot just left because he/she was embarrassed for crashing such an easy-to-fly airplane.
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Or he didn't want people to know that he was flying a piper like that!:wink2:
 
COFlyBoy said:
Well now I'm waaaaaay offended. I'm gonna call down the wrath of the Piper Owner Society forum on you!
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Intentional or accident? You decide...

d898b548-71d1-df15.jpg


d898b548-71de-6bf8.jpg
 
Holy crap guys......are we trying to boost the POA membership numbers?

Keep this up and we are going to start seeing Piper owners coming to pile onto this thread!
 
Fearless Tower said:
Holy crap guys......are we trying to boost the POA membership numbers?

Keep this up and we are going to start seeing Piper owners coming to pile onto this thread!
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Pipers, Cessnas, Aeroncas, Diamonds, Taylorcrafts, RVs... all have their own virtues. I for one could be jumping in to any one of 10 different types of aircraft at the airport where I work, and they're all good airplanes.

Ryan
 
COFlyBoy said:
He flies a PA-23 which is the evil antithesis of the PA-32.

Edit: Ah crap. I just checked and the Comanche is the PA-24 which makes the joke less funny.
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No, I fly a PA-23 which is the white horse to your black sheep of an airplane. :D
 
alaskaflyer said:
Intentional or accident? You decide...

d898b548-71d1-df15.jpg


d898b548-71de-6bf8.jpg
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OK, I'll admit the PA-32-300RT is one of the ugliest abominations on earth. If I had one I might be tempted to crash it somewhere, run away, and claim it was "stolen" so I could get the insurance money and buy something prettier.

OTOH, the '66 PA-32-260 has the classic lines, beauty, and can do capability that built American GA in the '60s. If a guy crashed one of those he'd fall on his knees and weep bitter tears of shame.
 
An update on the story - the "pilot" crashed because he did not know how to switch tanks. Apparently one tank was empty and one had plenty of fuel in it. A check of the hobbs shows the thief flew for 1.9 hours before he put it in the trees.

Guessing whoever stole the plane was probably not a rated pilot.
 
dell30rb said:
An update on the story - the "pilot" crashed because he did not know how to switch tanks. Apparently one tank was empty and one had plenty of fuel in it. A check of the hobbs shows the thief flew for 1.9 hours before he put it in the trees.

Guessing whoever stole the plane was probably not a rated pilot.
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Nah, the NTSB reports are chock full of rated pilots who ran out of gas. ;)
 
dell30rb said:
An update on the story - the "pilot" crashed because he did not know how to switch tanks. Apparently one tank was empty and one had plenty of fuel in it. A check of the hobbs shows the thief flew for 1.9 hours before he put it in the trees.

Guessing whoever stole the plane was probably not a rated pilot.
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Assuming there was a pilot on board to switch the tanks in the first place. I would guess that whoever had sufficient knowledge of the systems to be able to start the airplane up, get airborne and fly most likely knew about the fuel switch.

That's why I'm smelling a D.B. Cooper type insurance recovery operation. He may have bailed well before the plane hit the ground. In fact, it is entirely possible he may have never even LEFT the ground with the airplane.
 
Sac Arrow said:
Assuming there was a pilot on board to switch the tanks in the first place. I would guess that whoever had sufficient knowledge of the systems to be able to start the airplane up, get airborne and fly most likely knew about the fuel switch.

That's why I'm smelling a D.B. Cooper type insurance recovery operation. He may have bailed well before the plane hit the ground. In fact, it is entirely possible he may have never even LEFT the ground with the airplane.
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Are you suggesting the owner bailed out to claim it was stolen and get insurance money on an airplane he didn't want or could not afford?

They found face impacting panel blood in the cockpit

edit - they also found a blood trail and k-9 dogs followed it for awhile but got lost. They did not locate the crash scene until almost 5 hours after the crash
 
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Sac Arrow said:
That's why I'm smelling a D.B. Cooper type insurance recovery operation. He may have bailed well before the plane hit the ground. In fact, it is entirely possible he may have never even LEFT the ground with the airplane.
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Wouldn't be the first time, Know someone who chased a pilotless plane once.
 
Teacher of mine was out at a popular breakfast stop and observed a guy hand prop his plane with an empty cockpit, plane started and apparently the throttle was a little on the high side becasue it started rolling and took off and started a climbing circle.

Teacher jumped into his plane and followed it as the winds aloft pushed the circles away from the airport. Said he stayed with it untill a CAP plane took over the persuit. It eventually ran out of gas and ended up in a cornfeild.
 
Skylane81E said:
Teacher of mine was out at a popular breakfast stop and observed a guy hand prop his plane with an empty cockpit, plane started and apparently the throttle was a little on the high side becasue it started rolling and took off and started a climbing circle.

Teacher jumped into his plane and followed it as the winds aloft pushed the circles away from the airport. Said he stayed with it untill a CAP plane took over the persuit. It eventually ran out of gas and ended up in a cornfeild.
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Now that's funny.
 
Skylane81E said:
Teacher jumped into his plane and followed it as the winds aloft pushed the circles away from the airport. Said he stayed with it untill a CAP plane took over the persuit. It eventually ran out of gas and ended up in a cornfeild.
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Hahaha. Now I want the Mission Number... that'd be some fun reports to read. Wonder if the CAP aircraft was aloft already or alerted... that'd be a fun alert call...

"We need a crew to go follow an airplane until it crashes, then you'll get an automatic 'Find' award." :rofl:
 
dell30rb said:
Are you suggesting the owner bailed out to claim it was stolen and get insurance money on an airplane he didn't want or could not afford?

They found face impacting panel blood in the cockpit

edit - they also found a blood trail and k-9 dogs followed it for awhile but got lost. They did not locate the crash scene until almost 5 hours after the crash
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I was suggesting that could have been a possibility yes. But if they found blood and a trail then obviously not.
 
denverpilot said:
Hahaha. Now I want the Mission Number... that'd be some fun reports to read. Wonder if the CAP aircraft was aloft already or alerted... that'd be a fun alert call...

"We need a crew to go follow an airplane until it crashes, then you'll get an automatic 'Find' award." :rofl:
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Lemme see if I can dig up any details, no promises though.
 
I keep laughing when I read "POS"... for it's usual meaning.

But while I was trying to think up an alternate name, Piper Owners Organization came to mind, and that acronym is worse... ;)
 
Society of Piper Ownership would probably be better.
 
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