Piper Down in UT

Yeah that sucks, and I know what you mean.
It's like when you buy a new car and you start to see everyone that's driving the same model.
 
"
I watched one of these pieces of S crash once. Two dead, not all that long ago.
Do not EVER let any of your family members get on one of these death traps.
EVER"




Thats a comment from that article, people are always scared of what they dont know. RIP to those men.
 
This Meridian was based at ICT for a number of years until sold last year. Way to many PA46 accidents lately.

My death trap is doing well!
 
OP says "Piper Down in UT", but the crash was actually NE of Dallas, TX, near Paris. The plane and its passengers were from Utah.

FlightAware says the flight was destined for Austin.
 
Most of them are doing well until just before the crash. Like all other airplanes.
kmead said:
This Meridian was based at ICT for a number of years until sold last year. Way to many PA46 accidents lately.

My death trap is doing well!
Click to expand...
 
marcoseddi said:
Is this normal it seems like there is a crash everyday!
Click to expand...
Yes, just like it's "normal" for almost 100 people to die in automobile crashes every week day in the US.
 
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Turbo prop flown by a professional pilot.

Witness saw it spinning down and then go straight in.

What could it be other than weather related?

Reminds me of the Pilatus in FL last year.

I wish we could figure out what's happening.
 
I was flying one of my father's 172s not long after getting my muli in our 310 and making comments to my brother about how simple it was to fly over the 310. I'll never forget my brother's comment to me. He tells me that the 172 will kill me just as quickly. (He was my multi instructor)

Until they investigate this one, the sky is the limit as to what caused this accident.

My 19 year old daughter did a perfect job as PIC in the Malibu last week.
 
"Professional pilot" means little to me (as a guy who has been one and trained a jillion of them) when an accident occurs. The accident cause for both pro pilots and amateurs is ~equal (90% pilot error) so the first thing I want to know about is pilot history and quals.

Time in type, initial training, recurrent training, etc. as well as the stuff that always surfaces after the accident but for some reason is never mentioned prior. If the weather was bad enough to disable the plane, why would a pro pilot have taken off?

Alexb2000 said:
Turbo prop flown by a professional pilot.

Witness saw it spinning down and then go straight in.

What could it be other than weather related?

Reminds me of the Pilatus in FL last year.

I wish we could figure out what's happening.
Click to expand...
 
Jim_R said:
Yes, just like it's "normal" for almost 100 people to die in automobile crashes every week in the US.
Click to expand...

I think you mean 1000 people die in automobile crashes... We couldn't be so lucky as to have only 100 a week die..:sad:
 
N801BH said:
I think you mean 1000 people die in automobile crashes... We couldn't be so lucky as to have only 100 a week die..:sad:
Click to expand...
Whoops, yeah, I actually meant to write "almost 100 per day". Thanks for the correction.
 
pbramlett said:
According to the registration it is turboprop PT-6 powered.
Click to expand...

Those are better than the piston ones - I wouldn't particularly care to own an airplane that the owner group puts out a publication on how to shoot an ILS dead stick however.
 
We really can't make these kind of direct comparisons. Everytime when someone make these kind of claim, I just hope they are saying it "tongue in cheek" because they must know that there are at east a 1,000 times more cars than small planes in this country/world. These kind of comparisons are a separate topic and I'm sure it's been debated plenty before, but let's not make them out to be the same.

Jim_R said:
Yes, just like it's "normal" for almost 100 people to die in automobile crashes every week day in the US.
Click to expand...
 
Rayden said:
We really can't make these kind of direct comparisons. Everytime when someone make these kind of claim, I just hope they are saying it "tongue in cheek" because they must know that there are at east a 1,000 times more cars than small planes in this country/world. These kind of comparisons are a separate topic and I'm sure it's been debated plenty before, but let's not make them out to be the same.
Click to expand...
Exactly. I made another post but I guess it didn't go through.

General Aviation is without a doubt more dangerous and deadly than driving a car if you are looking at the overall statistics. You are only lying to yourself if you think otherwise. From another website:

"Hey folks - read the Nall Report and do the math. It makes things pretty clear. GA flying is many times more dangerous than driving. Also consider that the fatality rate is even higher than the Nall numbers report since the total GA flight hours come from what pilots report and most exagerate their flight time. Richard Collins talked about this years ago and, to his credit, was brutally honest about aviation safety (unlike some in av media).

A lot of the dead pilots in these accident stats probably thought of themselves the same way most us do - that they are conservative, proficient and well trained aviators. I love general aviation more than most things but I never BS people and preach about how safe it is."
 
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OP asked if it was "normal" to see almost a post a day about small airplane crashes.

It is.

It is also normal to see lots of car crashes every day.

I said nothing about whether airplanes or cars were "safe" or which one was safer.

But yes, the rate of small airplane crashes is "normal", in the sense that it's not appreciably higher or lower today than it's been in recent years.
 
pbramlett said:
According to the registration it is turboprop PT-6 powered.
Click to expand...

It has been awhile since I read up on these. However it seemed there were two types of failures in the beginning of the PA46. One from the engines and one from what they believed were the planes coming apart.

It seemed that Piper did a study and found that non properly trained pilots were jumping in them like a Turbo Comanche and not being properly trained on the pressurization and that could be one cause. They instituted some additional training and those accidents seemed to cease.

As far as the engine failures they could well have been asking too much of the engines as they changed back and forth between lycoming and conti engines and back. I do not know the current state of affairs regarding same however the Turbo props were never suspect for mechanical failure to my knowledge.

Wayne do you have any more information to contribute on this? I know you are in the Turbine field and probably read more about this than I do.
 
This accident did not happen in Utah. It occurred Saturday morning, 11 miles South of Cox Field, Paris, Tx where I learned to fly 21 years ago.

I have not been able to learn much about it except that he turned back to the field after starting about a 300 mile flight to the SouthWest. A witness observed the plane spinning out of the clouds and augered straight into the ground. I waited too late to look at the 3 day weather history to see what the cielings and such, were at the time, but Saturday morning here wasn't a beautiful VFR day and I am about 35 miles from the crash site.
 
wabower said:
"Professional pilot" means little to me (as a guy who has been one and trained a jillion of them) when an accident occurs. The accident cause for both pro pilots and amateurs is ~equal (90% pilot error) so the first thing I want to know about is pilot history and quals.

Time in type, initial training, recurrent training, etc. as well as the stuff that always surfaces after the accident but for some reason is never mentioned prior. If the weather was bad enough to disable the plane, why would a pro pilot have taken off?
Click to expand...


Wayne, the first thing I thought about was a safety Seminar at ASOD where Lucky showed a helicopter and described the accident. The pilot was a high time, air ambulance type pilot who went to answer a call out over the gulf near Galveston. Without a horizon in pitch dark, he lost control and went in hard. It turned out he had been instrument rated many years before, but had only flown a minimum number of simulated hours with no actual in his logbook as I recall.

It made me curious about this guys experience as well. All I've learned is that he had a commercial and CFI rating. From that I ASSUME he is instrument rated, as was the helicopter pilot over the gulf.

The interesting part is that he turned back 11 miles South of the airport and that's when he went in. Would he have decided weather was not in his favor and turned back, or was something amiss.

On a scale of 1 to 100, I have about a knowledge/experience level of 2 in these sort of things, but my gut tells me he must have lost it in the clouds, but who knows?
 
I think you could easily be correct, and hope we learn what happened. There's no question that pilot error causes ~9 of 10 accidents, so it's just a matter of which 1 of the 10 was a mechanical.

MBDiagMan said:
Wayne, the first thing I thought about was a safety Seminar at ASOD where Lucky showed a helicopter and described the accident. The pilot was a high time, air ambulance type pilot who went to answer a call out over the gulf near Galveston. Without a horizon in pitch dark, he lost control and went in hard. It turned out he had been instrument rated many years before, but had only flown a minimum number of simulated hours with no actual in his logbook as I recall.

It made me curious about this guys experience as well. All I've learned is that he had a commercial and CFI rating. From that I ASSUME he is instrument rated, as was the helicopter pilot over the gulf.

The interesting part is that he turned back 11 miles South of the airport and that's when he went in. Would he have decided weather was not in his favor and turned back, or was something amiss.

On a scale of 1 to 100, I have about a knowledge/experience level of 2 in these sort of things, but my gut tells me he must have lost it in the clouds, but who knows?
Click to expand...
 
I need to vent and this thread is titled perfectly...

A few months back a VFR plane went missing here in Wyoming, the CAP was involved and put up a 36 NM TFR to prevent any local pilots from looking.. They apparently didn't want anyone else "less" qualified" searching for the plane. 7 days later the Teton County S&R heli found it , not the CAP.:nonod:.

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20121125X95949&key=1

Within a few days a Piper went missing in Utah.... 3 people and two dogs. Once again, local pilots offered to help and were turned away.. Apparently the Civil Air Patrol had this incident "under control "too.........

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20121202X23953&key=1


Then, out of the blue a guy sent me an email as he saw some of my posts on a backcountry website where I was "less then impressed" with the CAP and their " we have it handled ,go away" attitude.............

I don't know this guy and it might be 100% accurate, or 100% BS, or somewhere in between.:dunno::dunno::dunno:


Here is his email to me.... I will leave out his name and Phone #......


----------------------------------------------------------------------


Hi Ben!
I'm an old fogey who believes in lessons learned rather than blaming others. Please ask the other folks to keep this private for now. We don't need anyone stirring up these agencies right now or upsetting the family.

We LOVE the many dedicated folks who comprise SAR teams! But in the case of this crash, the system was horribly broken.

These are some of the things that apparently went wrong with the notifications & procedures. They are listed chronologically whenever possible. Note: The aircraft apparently crashed shortly after noon on Sunday, 11.2 miles East of the Fillmore Airport (FOM).

1) There was an unconfirmed report in Sevier County on Sunday of smoke on the ridge between Millard County and Sevier County. Because there was no report of an aircraft emergency, it is unknown what procedures were implemented.
2) Although the FAA reportedly issued an ALNOT Report at 1148, Monday -- lots of counties and agencies were NOT notified for several days.
3) Utah CAP (usually Chaplain Boyd) regularly briefed the extended family on the search area & number of planes assigned. At the time, we did not know that they kept refusing other SAR resources (Pilots For Christ - Wyoming and other volunteers). It is still unclear who they did & did not notify. It is still unclear if they truly had the authority for all command decisions and had the right to refuse competent SAR resources. There seems to be conflicting guidance on this and even the counties didn't seem to know who was in charge.
4) Tuesday evening, I was flabbergasted that the Millard County Sheriff's Office dispatcher told me that they were NOT aware of any missing plane even though they were located in Fillmore -- where the plane was last seen. Chaplain Boyd had briefed me that he was in touch with their acting Sheriff and he knew about it -- but the dispatcher claimed no knowledge of it and wasn't interested in the information.
5) In subsequent days, family & friends were contacting lots of county sheriff's offices to verify that they had been notified. We are still gathering times, dates, names, etc., but several counties including adjoining counties told us on Wednesday & even Thursday that they had received NO notifications on a missing plane in the area. Some counties said that they were quite upset because they had highly trained & equipped SAR resources that would gladly have begun searching days earlier.
6) Wednesday, we were assured that several counties including Millard (Fillmore) had lots of ground SAR teams searching the local area. We were contacted on the Facebook page "Prayers for Trista, Shy & Matt" by private folks in that area who had volunteered their services with horses, ATVs & sleds, etc., but they told us that they were told by the county that they were NOT needed because they already had LOTS of search teams. Later, we received unconfirmed reports that SAR teams were not really deployed in that area after all. We really don't know!
7) When family members were contacting the governors & senators of UT & WY requesting National Guard resources such as Black Hawks and ground search teams, they were repeatedly told that it was impractical because the search area was 2400 sq. miles. This was an invalid reason for rejecting those resources, because there was NO evidence that they ever got out of the valley from the Fillmore Airport. Shortly after takeoff, there was one single ping received near Mt. Pleasant -- with NO further contact. On Wednesday, a group of us including off duty pilots and an air traffic controller went over every scrap of evidence or absence there of. We went through EVERY conceivable scenario and our group agreed unanimously that there was NO evidence they ever got out of the valley area. On Wednesday night, I contacted CAP Chaplain Boyd and he verbally agreed with our findings. I insisted that because a severe winter storm was forecast, the governors & National Guard must be contacted immediately to mobilize all appropriate resources for Thursday morning. Black Hawk helicopters would be absolutely critical in searching the local ridges, canyons & ledges before they would be buried by snow! One Utah National Guard Black Hawk made one sortie late Thursday afternoon and reportedly were joined by 2 more on Friday. We are unaware of any National Guard ground search resources being deployed.
8) Because of our connections with the USAF, Wing Commanders or Command Posts at several bases in the region were contacted. Significant resources such as photo reconnaissance aircraft, rescue helicopters and even unmanned drones were reportedly available but had to be officially requested through channels. We had a friend who works with classified satellite imagery that said they could have helped, but we couldn't get anyone in authority to make the request. That imagery and/or unmanned drones could have focused around the Fillmore area, the mountains just north and east of there, and a few lakes in the area.
9) Idaho Search & Rescue was contacted by family members and they indicated they could provide technical expertise or deploy teams & equipment if officially requested through channels. That option was not chosen.


End Result: The missing plane was found by a Utah DPS helicopter at approx. 8:00 am, Sunday, Dec. 2nd, 2012 -- 11.2 miles east of the Fillmore, UT Airport. The pilot, 2 passengers and 2 dogs did not survive.

The Utah State Medical Examiner in SLC states that the pilot died almost immediately, but his 34 year old girlfriend probably lived 3-4 days. Both of her lower legs were broken, but she eventually died from exposure. He also stated that her 9 year old daughter probably lived for 4-5 days before lying down next to her mother and dying of exposure. Grrrrr! She was relatively uninjured and her tracks were all over the hillside apparently trying to get help. The NTSB Lead Investigator stated a cell phone was found showing that the young girl had been trying to send text messages to her Daddy for help. Grrrr!

I'm sure that there are plenty of officials that feel terrible about this tragedy. But I highly doubt that any one of them would have any idea how horribly the system failed us all in this case. Some of these counties spend a lot of time, effort, and money preparing for SAR missions. We cheapen their dedicated efforts if we don't find the resolve to overcome these critical problems. In honor of our young friends -- we MUST do better and save lives in the future!!!

We will appreciate your efforts to help with this matter. Thank you!
 
I know we lost an engine at FL250 in an '87 we bought new, dead-sticked onto the runway at Galesburg IL without further incident and never flew it (or even saw it) again.

The airworthiness review (that seems to occur on many high-performance airplanes) yielded the same results as most all similar studies (such as the similar research on the MU-2) which is that the pilots rather than the airframe were the source of the problem.

Insofar as blaming the problem on icing is concerned, I'm slow to jump on that band-wagon due to watching these investigations for many years longer than I like to admit. Very few GA accident reports include icing as a probable cause, but many accidents are initially thought to be the result of it.

The most prominent recent event was probably the OSU King Air in Colorado. The papers and chat rooms were full of "gotta be icing" speculation when the actual cause was a simple electrical system problem that the crew didn't recognize. No doubt freezing rain will eventually take you down, but even the C students usually recognize it and beat feet the other way.

Tony_Scarpelli said:
It has been awhile since I read up on these. However it seemed there were two types of failures in the beginning of the PA46. One from the engines and one from what they believed were the planes coming apart.

It seemed that Piper did a study and found that non properly trained pilots were jumping in them like a Turbo Comanche and not being properly trained on the pressurization and that could be one cause. They instituted some additional training and those accidents seemed to cease.

As far as the engine failures they could well have been asking too much of the engines as they changed back and forth between lycoming and conti engines and back. I do not know the current state of affairs regarding same however the Turbo props were never suspect for mechanical failure to my knowledge.

Wayne do you have any more information to contribute on this? I know you are in the Turbine field and probably read more about this than I do.
Click to expand...
 
Attitudes, guys, attitudes.
Ran into it last week.
Weather going away. Suggested to my buddy we take the plane around the pattern just to warm the engines since it was going to be stormy for a few days.
The AWOS said 900 scattered in 3 miles - marginal but doable if you stay in the pattern.
Walking out to the hangar I noticed the broadcast towers 2.5 miles away were getting hazy and I could only see three sets of warning lights meaning 600 feet. I turned us around and trudged back.
Back in the lounge I got the usual crap from the usual suspects, strongly suggesting my lack of cajones. When I left about 15 minutes later (we would have been in the air at that moment) a curtain of sleet blew in coating the windows on the car.

Could I have handled it?
Dunno (shrug) Don't have any intentions of finding out.
 
wabower said:
The most prominent recent event was probably the OSU King Air in Colorado. The papers and chat rooms were full of "gotta be icing" speculation when the actual cause was a simple electrical system problem that the crew didn't recognize. No doubt freezing rain will eventually take you down, but even the C students usually recognize it and beat feet the other way.
Click to expand...
Even more recent was Colgan 3407.....when that happened most were convinced that it was ice related and tail plane ice specifically. No one wanted to think (at least initially) that it was due to basic pilot skills.
 
Dr. O said:
Attitudes, guys, attitudes.
Ran into it last week.
Weather going away. Suggested to my buddy we take the plane around the pattern just to warm the engines since it was going to be stormy for a few days.
The AWOS said 900 scattered in 3 miles - marginal but doable if you stay in the pattern.
Walking out to the hangar I noticed the broadcast towers 2.5 miles away were getting hazy and I could only see three sets of warning lights meaning 600 feet. I turned us around and trudged back.
Back in the lounge I got the usual crap from the usual suspects, strongly suggesting my lack of cajones. When I left about 15 minutes later (we would have been in the air at that moment) a curtain of sleet blew in coating the windows on the car.

Could I have handled it?
Dunno (shrug) Don't have any intentions of finding out.
Click to expand...

Good call. I would say this is exactly how a lot of guys end up balled up. My question is, why even consider going out warming the engines up with 900'? Let's say the towers weren't being covered and you took off. You're flying around and then it covers you up, I expect you could of handled it as an emergency, but why be there in the first place? I also assume you operate in class G or were planning a 400' pattern for legality.
 
It's easy to second guess a decision when someone crashes and dies. The harder one is when they live, which is most of the time. Certainly freezing drizzle/rain can be an issue and something to be avoided, but my experience is that it typically has more to do with inability to maintain airspeed as one is trying to climb. As climb performance decreases, one can be fixated on the VSI instead of the ASI.

For the ice to really bring you down, that's a lot of ice.
 
Does anyone know how to get DETAILED weather history for a particular day? I waited until past the 3 Day NOAA history that I am accustomed to looking at. If I had thought to look early enough, then I could get an idea if there was any chance of icing that morning. The history I found for that morning was very vague.

That Saturday morning, we had IFR, or at least marginal VFR where I fly out of which is about 35 miles West of Cox Field. I went out to my shop to work on a welder that I've been rebuilding. The reason I did so was that it was warm in the morning, with a cold front coming through in the afternoon.

It would be REALLY interesting to know if there might have been a low temperature aloft that could have made for icing conditions. There was indeed high humidity that morning.

Edit: I found some surface weather history, but have yet to find any temperature aloft data for that day. As I recall the plane went down at 8:15AM. The data shows the dewpoint and temp virtually coming together right at that time. This may not mean too much, since he would have probably had time to climb out of the clouds before then anyway. I will keep looking for aviation weather history.
 
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MBDiagMan said:
Does anyone know how to get DETAILED weather history for a particular day? I waited until past the 3 Day NOAA history that I am accustomed to looking at. If I had thought to look early enough, then I could get an idea if there was any chance of icing that morning. The history I found for that morning was very vague.

That Saturday morning, we had IFR, or at least marginal VFR where I fly out of which is about 35 miles West of Cox Field. I went out to my shop to work on a welder that I've been rebuilding. The reason I did so was that it was warm in the morning, with a cold front coming through in the afternoon.

It would be REALLY interesting to know if there might have been a low temperature aloft that could have made for icing conditions. There was indeed high humidity that morning.

Edit: I found some surface weather history, but have yet to find any temperature aloft data for that day. As I recall the plane went down at 8:15AM. The data shows the dewpoint and temp virtually coming together right at that time. This may not mean too much, since he would have probably had time to climb out of the clouds before then anyway. I will keep looking for aviation weather history.
Click to expand...
Since the weather channel bought the "weather underground" and shut them down, it's been harder...
 
Thanks Joe!

I had stumbled onto that same page and that was what I based my previous weather related comments on. It doesn't provide any temp or winds aloft information though.

At 8:15, the surface temp was 59F and the DAILY dewpoint indicated was 50F. With a day of changing weather like that one, a daily dewpoint doesn't indicate much.

Being a Texan and a rookie pilot flying a SLOW plane, I have very little experience or knowledge with icing conditions. It sure doesn't seem like there would have been icing conditions at any reachable altitude at that time of that day, but I again, something I don't know squat about. Maybe some of you experienced Winter fliers could comment on the possibility of icing.
 
Reading this made me sick. What in the hell is wrong with people.
 
Alexb2000 said:
Good call. I would say this is exactly how a lot of guys end up balled up. My question is, why even consider going out warming the engines up with 900'? Let's say the towers weren't being covered and you took off. You're flying around and then it covers you up, I expect you could of handled it as an emergency, but why be there in the first place? I also assume you operate in class G or were planning a 400' pattern for legality.
Click to expand...

When did 'Scattered' start counting as a ceiling?:dunno:
 
N801BH said:
I need to vent and this thread is titled perfectly...

A few months back a VFR plane went missing here in Wyoming, the CAP was involved and put up a 36 NM TFR to prevent any local pilots from looking.. They apparently didn't want anyone else "less" qualified" searching for the plane. 7 days later the Teton County S&R heli found it , not the CAP.:nonod:.

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20121125X95949&key=1

Within a few days a Piper went missing in Utah.... 3 people and two dogs. Once again, local pilots offered to help and were turned away.. Apparently the Civil Air Patrol had this incident "under control "too.........

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief.aspx?ev_id=20121202X23953&key=1


Then, out of the blue a guy sent me an email as he saw some of my posts on a backcountry website where I was "less then impressed" with the CAP and their " we have it handled ,go away" attitude.............

I don't know this guy and it might be 100% accurate, or 100% BS, or somewhere in between.:dunno::dunno::dunno:


Here is his email to me.... I will leave out his name and Phone #......


----------------------------------------------------------------------


Hi Ben!
I'm an old fogey who believes in lessons learned rather than blaming others. Please ask the other folks to keep this private for now. We don't need anyone stirring up these agencies right now or upsetting the family.

We LOVE the many dedicated folks who comprise SAR teams! But in the case of this crash, the system was horribly broken.

These are some of the things that apparently went wrong with the notifications & procedures. They are listed chronologically whenever possible. Note: The aircraft apparently crashed shortly after noon on Sunday, 11.2 miles East of the Fillmore Airport (FOM).

1) There was an unconfirmed report in Sevier County on Sunday of smoke on the ridge between Millard County and Sevier County. Because there was no report of an aircraft emergency, it is unknown what procedures were implemented.
2) Although the FAA reportedly issued an ALNOT Report at 1148, Monday -- lots of counties and agencies were NOT notified for several days.
3) Utah CAP (usually Chaplain Boyd) regularly briefed the extended family on the search area & number of planes assigned. At the time, we did not know that they kept refusing other SAR resources (Pilots For Christ - Wyoming and other volunteers). It is still unclear who they did & did not notify. It is still unclear if they truly had the authority for all command decisions and had the right to refuse competent SAR resources. There seems to be conflicting guidance on this and even the counties didn't seem to know who was in charge.
4) Tuesday evening, I was flabbergasted that the Millard County Sheriff's Office dispatcher told me that they were NOT aware of any missing plane even though they were located in Fillmore -- where the plane was last seen. Chaplain Boyd had briefed me that he was in touch with their acting Sheriff and he knew about it -- but the dispatcher claimed no knowledge of it and wasn't interested in the information.
5) In subsequent days, family & friends were contacting lots of county sheriff's offices to verify that they had been notified. We are still gathering times, dates, names, etc., but several counties including adjoining counties told us on Wednesday & even Thursday that they had received NO notifications on a missing plane in the area. Some counties said that they were quite upset because they had highly trained & equipped SAR resources that would gladly have begun searching days earlier.
6) Wednesday, we were assured that several counties including Millard (Fillmore) had lots of ground SAR teams searching the local area. We were contacted on the Facebook page "Prayers for Trista, Shy & Matt" by private folks in that area who had volunteered their services with horses, ATVs & sleds, etc., but they told us that they were told by the county that they were NOT needed because they already had LOTS of search teams. Later, we received unconfirmed reports that SAR teams were not really deployed in that area after all. We really don't know!
7) When family members were contacting the governors & senators of UT & WY requesting National Guard resources such as Black Hawks and ground search teams, they were repeatedly told that it was impractical because the search area was 2400 sq. miles. This was an invalid reason for rejecting those resources, because there was NO evidence that they ever got out of the valley from the Fillmore Airport. Shortly after takeoff, there was one single ping received near Mt. Pleasant -- with NO further contact. On Wednesday, a group of us including off duty pilots and an air traffic controller went over every scrap of evidence or absence there of. We went through EVERY conceivable scenario and our group agreed unanimously that there was NO evidence they ever got out of the valley area. On Wednesday night, I contacted CAP Chaplain Boyd and he verbally agreed with our findings. I insisted that because a severe winter storm was forecast, the governors & National Guard must be contacted immediately to mobilize all appropriate resources for Thursday morning. Black Hawk helicopters would be absolutely critical in searching the local ridges, canyons & ledges before they would be buried by snow! One Utah National Guard Black Hawk made one sortie late Thursday afternoon and reportedly were joined by 2 more on Friday. We are unaware of any National Guard ground search resources being deployed.
8) Because of our connections with the USAF, Wing Commanders or Command Posts at several bases in the region were contacted. Significant resources such as photo reconnaissance aircraft, rescue helicopters and even unmanned drones were reportedly available but had to be officially requested through channels. We had a friend who works with classified satellite imagery that said they could have helped, but we couldn't get anyone in authority to make the request. That imagery and/or unmanned drones could have focused around the Fillmore area, the mountains just north and east of there, and a few lakes in the area.
9) Idaho Search & Rescue was contacted by family members and they indicated they could provide technical expertise or deploy teams & equipment if officially requested through channels. That option was not chosen.


End Result: The missing plane was found by a Utah DPS helicopter at approx. 8:00 am, Sunday, Dec. 2nd, 2012 -- 11.2 miles east of the Fillmore, UT Airport. The pilot, 2 passengers and 2 dogs did not survive.

The Utah State Medical Examiner in SLC states that the pilot died almost immediately, but his 34 year old girlfriend probably lived 3-4 days. Both of her lower legs were broken, but she eventually died from exposure. He also stated that her 9 year old daughter probably lived for 4-5 days before lying down next to her mother and dying of exposure. Grrrrr! She was relatively uninjured and her tracks were all over the hillside apparently trying to get help. The NTSB Lead Investigator stated a cell phone was found showing that the young girl had been trying to send text messages to her Daddy for help. Grrrr!

I'm sure that there are plenty of officials that feel terrible about this tragedy. But I highly doubt that any one of them would have any idea how horribly the system failed us all in this case. Some of these counties spend a lot of time, effort, and money preparing for SAR missions. We cheapen their dedicated efforts if we don't find the resolve to overcome these critical problems. In honor of our young friends -- we MUST do better and save lives in the future!!!

We will appreciate your efforts to help with this matter. Thank you!
Click to expand...


I thought I put that comment with this quote but I see I did not. Fever of 102 getting to me I guess.

But this is what I meant when I said.......Reading this made me sick......
 
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