Something going on around DC

Jeff767 said:
I considered that statement but the military does not use civilians as targets unless they are contractors. I have never noted a contract for a Cessna 182.
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Ah, the ol' I've never seen an elephant in real life, so they must not exist, stance.
 
Lindberg said:
One of my AMEs had photos on the wall of his exam room showing fighters off his wing. He said he was flying around some MOA or another and the fighters were in the area and asked for a practice intercept.
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I got picked up and intercepted by an F-16 over GA last year. But yeah, they never do anything with civilians.
 
Jeff767 said:
I considered that statement but the military does not use civilians as targets unless they are contractors. I have never noted a contract for a Cessna 182.
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years ago fighters would “intercept” civilian aircraft for practice. . . until they started causing TAs and RAs
 
Given the description of one of the F16 pilots I am now not so sure you had rapid cabin depressurization. In the Payne Stewart intercept, the pilots could not see inside the aircraft because the windows were fogged/iced over. In this one, the intercept pilot describes the pilot as being slumped over. it may be he was incapacitated and the pax didn't know anything was wrong . I hope I'm wrong about this, and you would think they would have noticed a couple of F-16s next to them, but that seems more plausible than RD.
 
Jeff767 said:
I considered that statement but the military does not use civilians as targets unless they are contractors. I have never noted a contract for a Cessna 182.
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Aaah, yes they do. And not contractors. :D
 
Pinecone said:
Aaah, yes they do. And not contractors. :D
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I suppose a rogue military pilot might do that. Perhaps he might even pop expendables and plug in blower. I mean why not since he is likely flying his last flight in a fighter!
 
Den60 said:
Given the description of one of the F16 pilots I am now not so sure you had rapid cabin depressurization...
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Not all hypoxia events are rapid decompression events and not all incapacitation events are due to hypoxia; CO poisoning, though unlikely, comes to mind.

What I would wonder is, if it was solely a pilot in capacitation event, if whether any passenger would at least to attempt outside communication, whether radio, text, email, phone, you name it. I wonder if there would even be forensic information available to answer that question.
 
TCABM said:
Not all hypoxia events are rapid decompression events and not all incapacitation events are due to hypoxia; CO poisoning, though unlikely, comes to mind.

What I would wonder is, if it was solely a pilot in capacitation event, if whether any passenger would at least to attempt outside communication, whether radio, text, email, phone, you name it. I wonder if there would even be forensic information available to answer that question.
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Not sure if that airplane had wifi installed. If not, then there would be no way to text, email or phone. As far as aircraft VHF, not sure if your average passenger could operate it or even figure out which channel to use.
 
Doc Holliday said:
Not sure if that airplane had wifi installed. If not, then there would be no way to text, email or phone. As far as aircraft VHF, not sure if your average passenger could operate it or even figure out which channel to use.
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Concur, but even if someone made their way to the cockpit, that’s informative. As it sounds, the interceptors did not report more than one person in the cockpit, so that leads me to wonder the state of the pax in back. If a cell phone forensic search turned up a text message that was composed or undelivered, that could be informative.
 
TCABM said:
Concur, but even if someone made their way to the cockpit, that’s informative. As it sounds, the interceptors did not report more than one person in the cockpit, so that leads me to wonder the state of the pax in back. If a cell phone forensic search turned up a text message that was composed or undelivered, that could be informative.
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Doesn't sound like there's gonna be enough of any phones left to find that sort of thing. :(
 
There was Helios 522. The pressurization was not in auto on the 737 and the crew didn't catch it. The passenger masks deployed but the flight deck confused that annunciation with the takeoff configuration warning. Even when prompted by the tech guys on the radio, they ignored it. A flight attendent on a portable bottle got into the cockpit. He had a commercial license and he and his flight attendant girlfriend tried to fly the plane, but the engines started flaming out (fuel exhaustion). I just wanted to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you.
 
Doc Holliday said:
Not sure if that airplane had wifi installed. If not, then there would be no way to text, email or phone. As far as aircraft VHF, not sure if your average passenger could operate it or even figure out which channel to use.
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I read an article that included an interview with the owner and he mentioned he looked into equipping it with WiFi but it was too cost prohibitive.
 
Jeff767 said:
That will happen and they now believe you are up to no good. There are defined procedures for what to do if intercepted. Slowing down to shake the intercept is not one of them.
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Well, assuming you're intercepted by the USAF, then sure. But what if it's the Russians? I think my move there would be: power to idle, pull up to get to around 40 mph, spiral down to the right, and land in a field. Then shake my fist at them like Snoopy does with the Red Baron.

Sorry...watching too many clips about Ukraine.
 
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So a couple of thoughts after reading 5 pages of speculation (to which I'm admittedly adding) and needless argumentation:

1. As @FPK1 noted, we have to consider pilot health. If indeed the pilot had a cardiac event or something similar, pax would likely not have even noticed for a very long while due to the expected climb, level off, and turn at approximately the correct time. Most pax are not very aware of what is going on in their flight. They are reading books, playing games, enjoying snacks, or, one of my personal favorites, napping.

2. The USAF frequently uses Civil Air Patrol for intercept practice. One of our club members is a CAP check pilot who flies these missions several times per year.

3. Assuming that a non-pilot passenger DID in fact make their way to the cockpit in the event of a pilot health emergency, assuming single pilot operations, there was likely only one headset plugged, in, the passenger likely didn't know where the PTT button was, and would not know how to disengage the AP. The ONLY thing I can think of to counter this particular line of reasoning would be that perhaps the F-16 pilots could have identified movement of a passenger during their intercept.
 
The pilot owned a Piper PA32 (T-tail Lance) and was on the PA32 Facebook page. He was a retired airline pilot. He participated a lot in the discussions and had commented on many of my posts on the PA32 FB page. He participated in the discussions and wasn't just a "lurker". Super nice guy. So tragic.
 
Jeff767 said:
I suppose a rogue military pilot might do that. Perhaps he might even pop expendables and plug in blower. I mean why not since he is likely flying his last flight in a fighter!
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Hard to do that in a 182. :D
 
Military planes do not intercept civilian planes, such as my Cessna 172, flying V 3, southbound, in NC.

Visually, it passed within 100 yards.

On ATC radar, it was flying at 300 knots, and merged its radar return with mine. My controller had no data on the fighter.

When I returned from my week long trip, I contacted the FAA for additional information, they referred me to the Marine Corp. They were unresponsive.

I made a request to my Senator to obtain the desired flight information, and after a long delay, his office informed me that the Marines no longer had any information on the flights of that day and area.

Thus, there is no record that a civilian plane was intercepted that day.

Did not happen.

My wife and I both saw the pilots face in his helmet, side view, he was looking straight ahead. Our two young sons in the back seat were also impressed at how close he passed, and watched as he dove for the terrain, and departed, still, according to the ATC radar, flying at 300 knots. It is recorded in my log book.
 
What is volume of air in a citation? How much moisture do 3 adults and a two year old exhale in 30 minutes? What’s left in the air at the two hour mark?

what if pressurization didn’t occur until after they passed? I could see an old valve opening or closing out of spec
 
geezer said:
Military planes do not intercept civilian planes, such as my Cessna 172, flying V 3, southbound, in NC.

Visually, it passed within 100 yards.

On ATC radar, it was flying at 300 knots, and merged its radar return with mine. My controller had no data on the fighter.

When I returned from my week long trip, I contacted the FAA for additional information, they referred me to the Marine Corp. They were unresponsive.

I made a request to my Senator to obtain the desired flight information, and after a long delay, his office informed me that the Marines no longer had any information on the flights of that day and area.

Thus, there is no record that a civilian plane was intercepted that day.

Did not happen.

My wife and I both saw the pilots face in his helmet, side view, he was looking straight ahead. Our two young sons in the back seat were also impressed at how close he passed, and watched as he dove for the terrain, and departed, still, according to the ATC radar, flying at 300 knots. It is recorded in my log book.
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Probably never saw ya. I’ve had plenty of close calls with fighters on VR routes and C-130s on slow routes. See and avoid.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Well, I'm still leaning toward cabin depressurization, only because I'm around the same age as the pilot, and I know I won't drop over.
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I agree with you that cabin pressurization is one of the more likely scenarios. The AOPA video is thoughtful and makes good points. Gryder...is Gryder. And of course, it's all speculation anyway.

Also, just saw this article in the NY Post about the pilot:

https://nypost.com/2023/06/07/jeff-hefner-pilot-of-ghost-plane-crash-was-known-as-mr-safety/
 
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Given the F-16 pilots visually confirmed the pilot was incapacitated, why not do maneuvers to attempt to gain the attention of the pax (perhaps they did?)
I know if I were a pax on an aircraft, and had F-16's off each wing close enough to see the pilots- I'd sure AF figure something was amiss and head towards the cockpit.

What conditions would need to exist for the interior windows not to frost over at that temperature (as was the case with Stewart's) assuming it was loss of pressurization?
 
tobnpr said:
Given the F-16 pilots visually confirmed the pilot was incapacitated, why not do maneuvers to attempt to gain the attention of the pax (perhaps they did?)….
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You mean besides the fighter jet flares they lit off?
 
eman1200 said:
You mean besides the fighter jet flares they lit off?
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Well, not being a fighter pilot I lack knowledge here...so if you have it, by all means enlighten me.
I assume they are dropped well ahead of the intercept aircraft as they're intended for the pilot to see and not the pax- and would be well below the aircraft before it overflew them. Probably a bad day if flares were ingested into the intakes, no?
 
tobnpr said:
Given the F-16 pilots visually confirmed the pilot was incapacitated, why not do maneuvers to attempt to gain the attention of the pax (perhaps they did?)
I know if I were a pax on an aircraft, and had F-16's off each wing close enough to see the pilots- I'd sure AF figure something was amiss and head towards the cockpit.

I talked to a friend who claimed he heard (yeah, that's 3rd hand and unreliable) that all the window shades in the passenger cabin were pulled down. Did anyone else hear that?

What conditions would need to exist for the interior windows not to frost over at that temperature (as was the case with Stewart's) assuming it was loss of pressurization?
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I think what happened in the Payne Stewart case was a very sudden decompression. (Didn't the NTSB conclude that a valve in the system failed catastrophically which caused a very fast loss of pressure?) When that happens there's no time for heat exchange between the air and it's surroundings (it's called adiabatic) and the air gets a lot colder fast -- below freezing. Also, cold air doesn't hold as much moisture as warm air, so the cold air would most likely be over-saturated and the extra moisture would precipitate out as ice very quickly.

If the pressure is reduced slowly (e.g. over the span of 10-20 minutes), the air would not get instantly cold. There is more to that hypothetical sequence of events, but I don't know enough about the Citation's pressurization system and possible failure modes to say much more.
 
Skymac said:
Pretty cocky to say you “won’t drop over”… Happens to the healthiest of people
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I was agreeing with him about the cabin pressurization issue -- not the part about dropping over. I should have clipped that part out of the quote.
 
Pack(s) might have never been selected on?

On the CRJ the outlet valve is ~6”. Pressurizing the jet to 6lb delta on the ground that valve is 1/2 or 3/4 open and the amount of air coming out is tremendous. Just trying to add some context to the air involved in these systems.
 
geezer said:
Military planes do not intercept civilian planes, such as my Cessna 172, flying V 3, southbound, in NC.

Visually, it passed within 100 yards.

On ATC radar, it was flying at 300 knots, and merged its radar return with mine. My controller had no data on the fighter.

When I returned from my week long trip, I contacted the FAA for additional information, they referred me to the Marine Corp. They were unresponsive.

I made a request to my Senator to obtain the desired flight information, and after a long delay, his office informed me that the Marines no longer had any information on the flights of that day and area.

Thus, there is no record that a civilian plane was intercepted that day.

Did not happen.

My wife and I both saw the pilots face in his helmet, side view, he was looking straight ahead. Our two young sons in the back seat were also impressed at how close he passed, and watched as he dove for the terrain, and departed, still, according to the ATC radar, flying at 300 knots. It is recorded in my log book.
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Were you in a MOA? Was there a VR or OR route on the chart (realize the chart shows a line, but the actual route can be several miles wide)?

Also, if he had intercepted you, he would have been looking at you.
 
Jeff767 said:
If you were intercepted why would you slow down and try and shake the intercept?
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These were training intercepts for the 113th TFW; we were supposed to provide realistic behavior, give the interceptors real world experience; anything from legitimately "lost and confused" to irrational radio calls, attempts to evade, etc. Let them get familiar with GA aircraft performance, etc. It was a MARSA environment, but with some safety exceptions, like leaving our lights on. On a hazy night, with no moon, it was difficult to keep SA - most of the time we didn't see the fighters until they were up close. There were multiple intercepts going on - sometimes we'd see the flares off in the distance. Two call signs for controlling agencies - we were limited to VHF, of course, and it was like they were talking with their heads in a galvanized bucket.
 
Pinecone is right, if it had been an intercept, he would have been looking at me.

"Were you in a MOA? Was there a VR or OR route on the chart (realize the chart shows a line, but the actual route can be several miles wide)?

Also, if he had intercepted you, he would have been looking at you."

Not in on a VR or OR route. The reality is that we had a near miss, and my ATC controller did not see him coming in time to give me a warning. Being on a flight plan with Flight Following is a big help, but not a guarantee of warning for potential midair collision. The have given me many heads up for planes that only came within a mile or two, which I appreciate.

PS, that fighter passed across in front of us, about 20 feet above our path, but we went through before the wake turbulence dropped enough to effect us.
 
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