PA28 down in Cape Cod

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Racerx

Final Approach
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New owner was certificated in 7/19, not instrument rated. I hate to speculate and call this one a JFK JR, but I'm afraid that looks likely.
 
Bill said:
New owner was certificated in 7/19, not instrument rated. I hate to speculate and call this one a JFK JR, but I'm afraid that looks likely.
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Sure does sound that way. New moon (if it was even above the horizon), over water, at night. Legally that's VFR, in reality that's flying in a black-hole, especially if there are high clouds masking the stars.

The call came two-and-a-half hours after he didn’t arrive and sent the FAA scrambling to review its radar data, which had picked up the plane over Hyannis and approaching Chatham until it vanished just before 7 p.m., dropping 4,000 feet per minute basically in a nosedive.​
 
I live right along what likely would have been his route of flight along the south coast of MA. We definitely had a high scattered layer Sunday night in my area with very limited visible stars that I remember seeing.

Sunday overall around here was one of those strange weather days overall that kept me on the ground as bad as I wanted to fly.
 
wayne said:
Sure does sound that way. New moon (if it was even above the horizon), over water, at night. Legally that's VFR, in reality that's flying in a black-hole, especially if there are high clouds masking the stars.

The call came two-and-a-half hours after he didn’t arrive and sent the FAA scrambling to review its radar data, which had picked up the plane over Hyannis and approaching Chatham until it vanished just before 7 p.m., dropping 4,000 feet per minute basically in a nosedive.​
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I would like to see VFR amended to something like "requires a discernable horizon for flight".
 
Bill said:
New owner was certificated in 7/19, not instrument rated. I hate to speculate and call this one a JFK JR, but I'm afraid that looks likely.
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That was exactly my thought as I looked at it ... sad!
 
Kenny Phillips said:
I would like to see VFR amended to something like "requires a discernable horizon for flight".
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Might as well make the required visibility 30+ miles. If it's shorter than that, you're not getting a distinct horizon.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
I would like to see VFR amended to something like "requires a discernable horizon for flight".
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People fly VFR all the time without a discrenible horizon, such as on hazy days or in mountainous terrain. As long as you can see ground references, you can reconstruct the flight attitude. Flying over water is different because there are no ground references even if you can see the water. Not having any structures, buildings, or trees makes it difficult for your mind to reconstruct the flight attitude.
 
Bill said:
New owner was certificated in 7/19, not instrument rated. I hate to speculate and call this one a JFK JR, but I'm afraid that looks likely.
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You mean a CIA drone took down another prominent person?
 
Kenny Phillips said:
I would like to see VFR amended to something like "requires a discernable horizon for flight".
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bflynn said:
Might as well make the required visibility 30+ miles. If it's shorter than that, you're not getting a distinct horizon.
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That would seriously curtail the VFR flying in the southeast during the summer. Just the humidity can easily make the visibility below 10 miles. There are many summer days here with the visibility reported at 5 miles and there are little to no clouds.

That said, I think it's definitely riskier for people to be flying VFR at Mooney/Bonanza/Cirrus speeds without flight following in those conditions. Closure rate for two planes in opposite directions is pretty short. :eek: ADS-B should help with that, but.... o_O

I've had too many occasions where ATC has called out traffic, plus I have SkyWatch in the Cirrus, plus ADS-B on the iPad, and still no joy. I just shake my head and think, "good thing they weren't shooting at me." :oops: ;)
 
I don't get it, stay over land, especially vfr, at night. I've run into a few newer, and older vfr pilots, extremely confident with their hood time and their ability to fly in IMC, who screw around in conditions they should not be in. They just don't get it, neither do I.
 
FlighAware shows N2186U as blocked. Does anyone have the ADSBExchange flight track? I'm having trouble searching the N number.
 
Flightradar24 had a partial track.
 
**** like this sucks. Any pilot out there knows how jfk went down especially if you live in the north east. He has to have thought about that risk in the past and despite that carried on. VFR on a cloudy night over the ocean is not vfr.
 
Kitch said:
I live right along what likely would have been his route of flight along the south coast of MA. We definitely had a high scattered layer Sunday night in my area with very limited visible stars that I remember seeing.

Sunday overall around here was one of those strange weather days overall that kept me on the ground as bad as I wanted to fly.
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Sunday afternoon along the CT coast was high scattered at my home field 8 miles inland but 1500 broken over the ocean to a few miles inland.
 
benyflyguy said:
**** like this sucks. Any pilot out there knows how jfk went down especially if you live in the north east. He has to have thought about that risk in the past and despite that carried on. VFR on a cloudy night over the ocean is not vfr.
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I remember that day vividly. Extremely hazy. I was a relatively new pilot with maybe 75 hours TT. I took my wife for a flight in a rented Arrow in Delaware and Maryland. We flew across the Chesapeake Bay east of BWI. The haze was so bad that I could not see the far shore, and had to use the bridge to Annapolis and some boats to stay shiny side up. And that was just a few miles over water. Got home late that night and heard the news about JFK JR. I knew immediately what had happened.
 
Speaking of JFK Jr, did you read the latest bat**** crazy QAnon theory? I would say you can't make this stuff up ... but someone did.
 
I didn't. But wasn't that goofy Baldwin guy seen in the NE? Maybe he accidentally shot down the Cherokee? They have very little armor.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
I would like to see VFR amended to something like "requires a discernable horizon for flight".
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Great. let’s make another rule to protect the stupid and aggravate the prudent.
If only we made enough rules everything would be perfect.
You can make that rule for yourself, nobody stopping you.
 
Was also his second leg of the day. First was 3:33. So he was at or over 5 hours flying time for the day when he went in the drink.

You wonder what people are thinking sometimes.
 
mryan75 said:
You wonder what people are thinking sometimes.
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You don't know what you don't know you don't know. No idea how disorienting it is flying over water with no horizon until you've done it. Absent that experience all you know is it's VFR.
 
Even doing practice approaches over water, in VFR, becomes an actual IFR situation if you are doing an outbound leg. Great practice, but you better be proficient if no safety pilot (obviously no hood). No horizon + No ground reference = IMC
 
On Sunday night just west of Boston I was somewhat surprised when we got a decent patch of rain as the trick-or-treaters were out after dark. Looking at the KCQX metars for that evening, though, they all report clear skies, winds out of the SW at 6-7 knots (temp/dew points were within 1-2 degrees of each other, though).

The linked news article says they were searching 2 miles off Nauset Beach, which would suggest the plane overshot Chatham (Nauset Beach being east of the airport) (and I assume the FAA had some radar returns that caused them to search there), but there's no real need to fly offshore when landing at Chatham unless you're doing the RNAV for Rwy 24 (which does take you 6-10 miles offshore). I've landed on both Rwy 24 and 06 at KCQX (granted, during the day) and one can approach, enter the pattern and land without straying offshore.
 
ldhilljr13 said:
On Sunday night just west of Boston I was somewhat surprised when we got a decent patch of rain as the trick-or-treaters were out after dark. Looking at the KCQX metars for that evening, though, they all report clear skies, winds out of the SW at 6-7 knots (temp/dew points were within 1-2 degrees of each other, though).

The linked news article says they were searching 2 miles off Nauset Beach, which would suggest the plane overshot Chatham (Nauset Beach being east of the airport) (and I assume the FAA had some radar returns that caused them to search there), but there's no real need to fly offshore when landing at Chatham unless you're doing the RNAV for Rwy 24 (which does take you 6-10 miles offshore). I've landed on both Rwy 24 and 06 at KCQX (granted, during the day) and one can approach, enter the pattern and land without straying offshore.
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DesertNomad said:
The PCL there is on a different frequency than CTAF which he may not have realized.
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I've landed there a few times, I don't think it would an easy airport to find at night, especially if the lights aren't on. There are lots of trees on both sides of the runway that shield it from view if you are low until close by. Swinging your head around trying to find it with no horizon could cause someone to become disoriented.

I'm a renter, one of the requirements for flying at night is that want a vasi or a papi on the runway you are landing, and better yet, an instrument approach, especially if you are unfamiliar. I'm thinking this is a good requirement. The visual glide slope aid probably wouldn't have helped here, although shooting an approach probably would have, if he had been instrument rated.
 
Morgan3820 said:
Great. let’s make another rule to protect the stupid and aggravate the prudent.
If only we made enough rules everything would be perfect.
You can make that rule for yourself, nobody stopping you.
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As with many things, the problem here is that if you crash a plane, sometimes you'll kill people on the ground, or possible burn their house down.

It's the constant balance between individual and collective rights and freedoms.
 
PaulS said:
I've landed there a few times, I don't think it would an easy airport to find at night, especially if the lights aren't on. There are lots of trees on both sides of the runway that shield it from view if you are low until close by.
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I concur with this -- I know that part of the Cape pretty well, and I had trouble finding the airport the first time I flew to it in daylight. If the pilot didn't realize that the pilot-controlled lighting was on a different frequency, then I could imagine arriving there after a very long day of flying (including a pretty long leg to Chatham) and being more than just a little freaked out (although Hyannis would be a good diversion option).
 
azpilot said:
As with many things, the problem here is that if you crash a plane, sometimes you'll kill people on the ground, or possible burn their house down.

It's the constant balance between individual and collective rights and freedoms.
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Not to mention making every single persons insurance rates go up….
 
PaulS said:
I'm a renter, one of the requirements for flying at night is that want a vasi or a papi on the runway you are landing, and better yet, an instrument approach, especially if you are unfamiliar. I'm thinking this is a good requirement. The visual glide slope aid probably wouldn't have helped here, although shooting an approach probably would have, if he had been instrument rated.
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Vasi/papi only helps if you're lined up with the runway. Based on where they were looking, he completely missed the airport. The plane was well equipped to handle such a mission. The pilot, barring a medical emergency apparently wasn't.img_1892.jpg
 
Kenny Phillips said:
I would like to see VFR amended to something like "requires a discernable horizon for flight".
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Why?

If the rules say one can do something is one mentally forced to do it?

More regulation isn’t the fix all people think it is, especially in situations like this
 
Yeah, assuming this was spacial disorientation, I don't see a regulation fixing this. The "following the rules" penalty for flying VFR in IFR is, at worst, probably a checkride. The actual penalty for VFR in IFR is that you're dead. This may seem harsh, but if a pilot can't understand that, in my view they're probably going to find some other way to screw up risk management and end up dead, too. I don't think rules can fix common sense or basic risk management skills. Maybe better training could.
 
BladeSlap said:
Why?

If the rules say one can do something is one mentally forced to do it?

More regulation isn’t the fix all people think it is, especially in situations like this
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they can add all the rules they want, and you know certain people just won’t follow them. Unless we want FAA at every airport checking every pilot, checking every planned flight, rules don’t matter to people that are too good, or too ignorant to follow them. So the only one that pay the price are the rest of us.
 
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