N720RP 3 Fatalities in West Virginia

I saw mention of heavy thunderstorms at the time of the accident, possibly an inflight breakup too.
 
I heard rumors that one of the wings was found at a different location from the rest of the wreckage.
 
Sad. That's beautiful but fairly remote country there. Mine country. Just a few miles away from the number 9 mine disaster in the late 60's. Not a lot of flat land or straight road anywhere near it, or at least didn't used to be.
 
Looks like They fly the pants off that plane. Looks like trying to stay south of a line of storms there. Dropped out of the sky without even a radar hit on the way down. Sad.
 
Not exactly sure how flight aware works. Is the depiction showing the weather at the time of the accident, or as of when we view the track?
If at the time of the accident, they were far enough away from the storms that should have no affect on the airplane.
 
Flight aware has a snapshot often of the radar picture, not totally accurate. Say one has a two hour flight, with the track line, the snapshot is just one moment of that flight. You can get an idea, that’s about it.
 
Albany Tom said:
Sad. That's beautiful but fairly remote country there. Mine country. Just a few miles away from the number 9 mine disaster in the late 60's. Not a lot of flat land or straight road anywhere near it, or at least didn't used to be.
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We have a section of western NC/eastern TC/SE Virginia like that. One of my friends refers to it as "North Korea."
 
sourdough44 said:
Flight aware has a snapshot often of the radar picture, not totally accurate. Say one has a two hour flight, with the track line, the snapshot is just one moment of that flight. You can get an idea, that’s about it.
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I've had it show me flying through red/white radar returns when I was vmc the whole way and storms built up behind me. I've also flown through solid imc/ rain showing green& yellow on tis-b, but flightaware shows clear. The accident aircraft could've flown into a thunderstorm, or gone vfr into imc despite what flightaware shows.

I hate these. I'm reminded of the turbo lance that broke up at 12k feet over AZ a few years ago. In the last atc transmission you could hear the family screaming and the plane coming apart. I wish I'd never listened to it. That was a non instrument pilot vfr into imc iirc.

For all the great attributes of the pa28/32, it's not the strongest airframe ever built. I keep mine out of the yellow arc in all but the smoothest air.
 
dcat127 said:
https://dailyvoice.com/pennsylvania...-while-flying-to-pennsylvania-reports/840471/

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N720RP/history/20220811/1942Z/KDCY/L

ADSB Track seems to show this plane basically fell out of the sky from 9500 feet. There is an increase in airspeed, moments before the track ends, but not much altitude change.
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Of course the news story shows a Six, but the accident plane was a Saratoga. I'll let 'em slide, due to Piper's odd numbering.
I don't know if the Saratoga has a stronger wing or different attachments, given that it's a retract.
Edit: I just looked up the location; I've been all through those hills. My father was born in Wadestown, just north of the crash area. Lovely country, spent many an hour fishing in the creeks, but precious little open space to land. In this case, that was moot.
 
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The retractables all have "R" after the model number, PA32R-301 is the retractable Saratoga.
 
Jim K said:
For all the great attributes of the pa28/32, it's not the strongest airframe ever built. I keep mine out of the yellow arc in all but the smoothest air.
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Yeah, I love the PA-28/PA-32 line but it's not just embry.. this accident notwithstanding (as we don't know the cause yet) there are many photos out there of damaged or wrecked pipers with a near perfect clean break between fuselage and wing :(

dtuuri said:
wrinkly looking wings
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I think that's just some oil canning evident from the way the photo is taken and exposed. But the Piper's I fly seem to have a little more wrinkling in the wing in flight than, say, a Beech
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Of course the news story shows a Six, but the accident plane was a Saratoga. I'll let 'em slide, due to Piper's odd numbering.
I don't know if the Saratoga has a stronger wing or different attachments, given that it's a retract.
Edit: I just looked up the location; I've been all through those hills. My father was born in Wadestown, just north of the crash area. Lovely country, spent many an hour fishing in the creeks, but precious little open space to land. In this case, that was moot.
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The Saratoga spar is significantly beefed up compared to older pa32's
 

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Looks like the plane started a climb and gained speed at the same time. If that is correct on FA not many things do that, but a thunderstorm can. Nexrad delay? Looks like they were at a VFR altitude.
 
Kritchlow said:
Not exactly sure how flight aware works. Is the depiction showing the weather at the time of the accident, or as of when we view the track?
If at the time of the accident, they were far enough away from the storms that should have no affect on the airplane.
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If you look at the bottom right corner of FlightAware screen there is a timestamp to indicate when the radar snapshot was taken. You can then compare that to the flight track to get an idea of actual weather at time of accident.

The weather timestamp shows roughly 70 minutes before the accident, which means theres a good chance those line of thunderstorms were further south at the time of the accident.
 
Kyle N said:
If you look at the bottom right corner of FlightAware screen there is a timestamp to indicate when the radar snapshot was taken. You can then compare that to the flight track to get an idea of actual weather at time of accident.

The weather timestamp shows roughly 70 minutes before the accident, which means theres a good chance those line of thunderstorms were further south at the time of the accident.
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Okay, thanks for that info. That said, even at 70 minutes not sure *those* storms would be a factor. Looks pretty far away.
Of course, radar images can change very quickly in 70 minutes.
 
Possibly another attempt to navigate in or around bad weather with the help of satellite weather only (which shows delayed information).
 
172sailor said:
Possibly another attempt to navigate in or around bad weather with the help of satellite weather only (which shows delayed information).
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No matter what ADS-B or XM weather shows, the eyeballs rule, especially operating VFR, as this flight was. I know we always talk about the possibility of the handful of minutes old radar picture. I still say, even if 8-10 minutes old, that picture is still very valuable.
 
And also the METAR at the time/date of crash at KMGW just to the east...its been awhile since I've translated the remarks sections, but I believe "LTG DSNT W" just means lightning 10+ miles to the west:

KMGW 112153Z 02009G21KT 6SM -RA BR BKN033 BKN060 23/18 A3003 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT W RAB51 SLP161 P0000 T02280178
 
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Sometimes accidents like these make me want to sell my Piper...
 
I was flying home to Cincinnati from Pittsburgh with my son at the same time. I believe we were talking to Cleveland Center and the controller was trying to get a hold of this aircraft. He then was speaking to what I think was an American Airlines flight in the same area. They were inquiring about passing through the weather at a point that looked like a break in the heavy precipitation. The controller told the American flight that a few planes had gone through the hole but that they had just lost complete contact with a VFR flight that attempted to pass through the hole and the controller asked them if they do go through to have a look around (the implication was for wreckage). They elected not to go through. Later, another aircraft was asked to listen for an ELT on guard. They couldn’t hear one. That’s all we heard before being handed off and were then eager to get on the ground to find out what happened. Very chilling to hear it in real time.
 
Kritchlow said:
Not exactly sure how flight aware works. Is the depiction showing the weather at the time of the accident, or as of when we view the track?
If at the time of the accident, they were far enough away from the storms that should have no affect on the airplane.
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Flightaware flight tracking depicts the weather during the flight. I’m new to the group.
 
Country Flier said:
And also the METAR at the time/date of crash at KMGW just to the east...its been awhile since I've translated the remarks sections, but I believe "LTG DSNT W" just means lightning 10+ miles to the west:

KMGW 112153Z 02009G21KT 6SM -RA BR BKN033 BKN060 23/18 A3003 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT W RAB51 SLP161 P0000 T02280178
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How do you find historic radar plots like this?
 
WcFlyer said:
I was flying home to Cincinnati from Pittsburgh with my son at the same time. I believe we were talking to Cleveland Center and the controller was trying to get a hold of this aircraft. He then was speaking to what I think was an American Airlines flight in the same area. They were inquiring about passing through the weather at a point that looked like a break in the heavy precipitation. The controller told the American flight that a few planes had gone through the hole but that they had just lost complete contact with a VFR flight that attempted to pass through the hole and the controller asked them if they do go through to have a look around (the implication was for wreckage). They elected not to go through. Later, another aircraft was asked to listen for an ELT on guard. They couldn’t hear one. That’s all we heard before being handed off and were then eager to get on the ground to find out what happened. Very chilling to hear it in real time.
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We were flying back from Charleston to Morgantown and departed CRW around the time of the accident (N464R). There was a strong line of storms that forced us to fly north to Parkersburg to find a hole to get north of the storms. We ended up having to pickup an IFR clearance to get through it. Once we got north of the line of thunderstorms, Cleveland Center and Clarksburg Approach both asked us to monitor guard for ELT and look for smoke. God bless those souls on board and their families.
 
FlightAware will show you a snapshot for the radar when the aircraft departs. I usually look for aircraft departing from an airport near the location and time interested in.
 
I'm a new user so I can't include a link, but LiveATC has some of the audio from this incident. In the Archive page, select Aug 11, ZOB Sector 61 Morgantown Low, at 2200. At about 7m25s you can hear Delta 2770 attempting to call N720RP, presumably at the request of ATC, and reporting "No joy."

Can anyone find the other side of this conversation including ATC? Apparently this stream doesn't pick up ATC's side of the conversation.
 
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Jim K said:
Uh yeah... that'll do it....
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benyflyguy said:
That’s probably the worst spot to be in that entire radar echo
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..does that return look really that bad? Enough to de-wing a plane? Wouldn't the bright red be worse than the yellow and green?

I mean, clearly it was. But I wouldn't think kissing the yellow part of a precip return would be enough to pull wings off an otherwise high performance and capable aircraft..

Not an engineer, but this, will never look strong enough to me.. thanks to @Racerx for the pic. The PA28s look even worse. This just doesn't pass the "looks about right" rule. Especially if you've seen other planes disassembled, Mooney, Beech, etc.
upload_2022-8-16_13-48-50.png


Compare that to the Aerostar's multiple beefy attach points, I snapped these photos while ogling at one while in annual. Water bottle for scale. Thanks Ted Smith!
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Found it on Live ATC! Feed name is "ZID Indy Center (Marietta RCAG)" at 2130-2200 on Aug 11.

You can hear communications with N720RP discussing whether or not they should attempt trying a gap in the weather to the north, starting around 13mins.
 
Tantalum said:
..does that return look really that bad? Enough to de-wing a plane? Wouldn't the bright red be worse than the yellow and green?

I mean, clearly it was. But I wouldn't think kissing the yellow part of a precip return would be enough to pull wings off an otherwise high performance and capable aircraft..

Not an engineer, but this, will never look strong enough to me.. thanks to @Racerx for the pic. The PA28s look even worse. This just doesn't pass the "looks about right" rule. Especially if you've seen other planes disassembled, Mooney, Beech, etc.
View attachment 109716


Compare that to the Aerostar's multiple beefy attach points, I snapped these photos while ogling at one while in annual. Water bottle for scale. Thanks Ted Smith!
View attachment 109717
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Front of that is where there are some serious convective updrafts/downdrafts. By itself not dewing a plane. But inadvertent IMC and turbulence could lead to some badness
 
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