PA32 N9236J Down near Claxton TN. Inflight breakup suspected.

RyanB

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Not much info yet. It was very turbulent and windy here in SE TN.


:(
 
Horrifying! RIP, condolences to friends and family…
 
1993 Saratoga. So weird. One of the photos shows the vertical stabilizer laying by itself.
 
Sad day for those involved

There was a storm that passed through that area Friday. I wonder if that was a factor
 
I had 300 @ 43 kts 500 ft aloft around that time. CHA was issuing multiple LLWS alerts and using runway 33. They hardly ever use that runway. RIP.
 
Looking at the ADS-B track, the groundspeed during climbout was very slow (low 70s dipping to the low 60s) with strong (mostly) crosswinds predicted aloft. There was an AIRMET for icing and turbulence. The bulk of the storm had passed, but the aircraft flew right into a radar-indicated, fairly light precip cell near Oak Ridge and departed controlled flight just a few moments later. It would have been about -6°C at that altitude.

If you look closely at the ADS-B, at about the time the aircraft entered the cell, it resumed a climb and slowed down even more, then suddenly turned left, gained a bit of speed and descended (looks a lot like a stall), then climbed again for a moment until what may have been a secondary stall, followed by a very rapid descending right spiral with ground speeds reaching at least 250 knots. The ADS-B track ends at about 6,700’ MSL.
 
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