Josh Lang's Photos of the Fuddy Crash Are Not the Same Plane

Butterdezillion's Blog ^ | 2-23-14 | Butterdezillion

[butterdezillion]

The photos of the Loretta Fuddy Cessna crash that Josh Lang provided to the media? They weren't of the same plane. The plane that crashed with Fuddy in it had a window between the door and the tail; Lang's photos don't. (I've got photos at my blog and in the first post I'll post them so you can compare the 2 planes)

Lang apparently had photos of a DIFFERENT plane ditching in the water and gave them to the media, claiming they were of this crash, and apparently the media didn't check out the genuineness of the photos...

Now why would Lang do that? Why would he post images of the area with no passengers or anything else in the water ANYWHERE, rather than taking photos of what was actually there and giving those to the media?

[butterdezillion]

It doesn’t even really matter who took the photo. I just don’t see any way that could be the same event. See my last post, explaining that for this aerial photo to be taken after the people got away from the plane, the tail would have had to get very, very heavy - enough to lift the rest of the plane up even behind its center of gravity - so that the 2 windows between the wing and the door came up out of the water, having already been submerged according to Puentes’ image.

[cynwoody]

so the image credited to Josh that shows an aircraft wing on the right, can’t be the photograph he took from the helicopter.

Just because Josh Lang is a copter pilot doesn't mean he and his gf were in one when they found the wreck. In fact, this account has them landing at Moloka'i after spotting the wreck, finding no one around, getting back in their airplane and returning to the scene in order to provide encouragement to the passengers and make sure the Navy helicopter would have no trouble finding them.

[little jeremiah]

Why would Lang take photos of the plane and not take photos of the people? After an accident, someone who happened to come upon a plane down, or knew of it (I can’t remember which it was said to be in Lang’s case) would not just take photos of the plane, but of the survivors. So if he took photos of the real plane, he must have taken photos of the survivors. If they were not near the plane, he would have photographed them. THere is not a chance he would not have done so.

Where are his photos of the people floating around far away from the plane?

[butterdezillion]

So they have no record of this plane making this Dec 11, 2013 flight? Is that what you’re saying?

[John Valentine]

Obviously Lang’s photo was taken a few minutes later than the other one. You can see that the plane has taken on considerable water in the interim.

[Fred Nerks]

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/24246422/exclusive-pilot-describes-discovering-molokai-plane-crash

Josh describes what he saw. Apparently now, it seems from a message just received, that Josh wasn’t flying a helicopter on that day. He was described as a helicopter pilot, and that leaves the impression he was in a chopper.

excerpt:

“As we approached the object in the water, we quickly realized that it was an aircraft and flew down lower to look for people in the water. We verified the tail number of the aircraft and that there were nine people in the water,” the couple wrote in a statement provided to Hawaii News Now.

Lang and Thomson say they contacted the Moloka’i tower and landed back at the airport to see if anyone was available to help, but say no one was around.

“We decided it best to get back in the plane and fly over the people in the water to try to give them some comfort that they were not alone and were going to be rescued. During this time we made many low passes over the crash site and people, and watched the Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft slowly sinking,” the statement goes on to say.

While the couple circled above, they say they watched passengers drift west in the current and waves as one person managed to swim to shore.

According to Lang and Thomson, about 15 minutes before the first rescue crew arrived the aircraft completely submerged and sank.

[little jeremiah]

During this time we made many low passes over the crash site and people, and watched the Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft slowly sinking,”

---

And where are his photos of the people?

[Uncle Chip]

Which of those images would have been taken first - the one with the windows not yet in the water (Lang’s), or the one with all the windows in the water (Puentes’)?

You've got that backwards, don't you -- as you identified them in Post #3.

Clearly Puentes photo was taken first as it shows the plane is still sitting high in the water and people are still getting out of it. Lang's photo as you call it is second with the entrance and windonw subsequently submerged.

[butterdezillion]

How did the windows between the wing and the door get up out of the water during that time?

[Fred Nerks]

Hey, why are you asking me? I imagine it was hardly the sort of situation in which you take snapshots? Remember, he also flew back to the little airport looking for help and there was no one there, because they shut at 3.30 iic.

I should be at the gym. Catch you later.

[holden]

That I would be easily discovered if I were in a conspiracy to murder someone is fine with me. I don't ever want to be successful at such an evil. But that's not to agree with your assertion of absurdity.

A confident, not-protesting-too-much infobabe, IMHO, would not be very likely to hurl nonsense about "spiraling into the ocean", "passengers don't know it yet (the heck they didn't, they heard a noise and saw the ocean and landscape rising up all around them as the plane descended!), "mad scramble" (while elsewhere she remarks "how calm everone was"/"so methodical"), "throughout the three-minute ordeal" (what was she smoking?).

We saw other posters on FR presenting overheated portrayals that seemed to be informed and yet given to gross distortions of the scenario. Those were overly dramatic and factually filled with errors.

She doth protest too much or was simply in over her head. She's not ready for a national news desk assignment. Perhaps her superiors made a poor choice or put too much pressure on her in some fashion.

I hadn't seen the salvager's account. Thanks for linking to that. I hadn't realized it was underwater for a week, during which time it obviously would've been susceptible to ocean floor currents and swells. With that information in hand, I have no evidence to doubt the salvager. Still if the memory of the GPS showed a manual entry of that patch of ocean, it'd certainly and justifiably raise the suspicion of foul play to new heights.

If the NTSB and P&W find a reasonable, "natural" cause for the engine failure, I would certainly need further evidence to conjecture anything in the direction of foul play.

Puentes is quite a curious character to have TWO GoPro cameras at the ready, one conveniently on a staff. Who could've done planning any better than that? Then, how he got the one who was "killed" in the lens for perhaps crucial moments was interesting.

I'm not into making conjectures, but I would be into considering all characteristics outside the norm as being potential evidence of anomalous behavior.

HF

[SatinDoll]

You look again. There are many different door configurations for the Cessna Caravan, which is smaller than the plane, a Cessna Caravan Grand, that Fuddy and Puente were passengers on.

Most of all, the ID numbers on the tails are different.

[rodguy911]

This is a pretty good point.And Butter has made it over and over as well. It’s not very logical to think that an experienced pilot would take plane photos only and not survivor photos as well.Just does not make good sense.

[WhiskeyX]

“The Fuddy story is falling apart. The photos that Josh Lang gave to the media, claiming they were of the Fuddy crash.... were of a different plane. His plane has no window between the door and the tail.”

That is a false statement as multiple posts have demonstrated with the annotated Lang photographs. The window you claim is missing can be seen right there in plain sight. What you are mistakenly identifying as the passenger door is actually the aft window you are wrongly claiming is missing.

[machogirl]

that plane, with that number, is still flying

[Seizethecarp]

“Clearly Puentes photo was taken first as it shows the plane is still sitting high in the water and people are still getting out of it. Lang’s photo as you call it is second with the entrance and windonw subsequently submerged.”

Butterdezillion:

I agree with Uncle Chip. The plane in the Lang photo is significantly more submerged than in the Puentes photos. In the Lang photo the wings are completely under water, which they were not in the Puentes photo.

The people not being visible in the Lang photo is consistent with the people having floated away in the time it took for the plane to sink more between the two photos.

The Puentes and Lang pictures are of the same plane, IMO.

Once again, I appreciate your sharing things that look questionable to you!

[butterdezillion]

Here is Puentes' image. You can see that the back window is already in the water and the 2 windows between the wing and the door are deeper into the water than the back window and are nowhere to be seen in the image: And here is Lang's photo, where you can still see the top frame of the 2 front windows and the bottom frame of the back window: If Lang's came after Puentes (allowing the people time to get way, way clear of all parts of the plane, even though the Puentes video has Jacob Key sitting on the wing pointing the OPPOSITE direction at what is claimed was Lang's plane), then how did the 2 windows between the wing and the door go under for Puentes' image and then later come back up for Lang's photo? By what mechanism did the submerged windows come back up out of the water? See, even with Lang going back and forth between the airport and the crash site, the sinking of the plane is one event, and the parts of the plane submerged in a certain order. As of Puentes' image, the front of the plane was already heavy enough to be leading the sinking and the 2 windows between the wing and the door are already fully submerged. The heavy front of the plane could tip the plane on its fulcrum, bringing the back window up out of the water after it was already partially in the water, but the fulcrum would be the center of gravity. What's the center of gravity for the Cessna 208B? I would think it would depend on how full the fuel tanks were. By then they would have been filled with water which is why the front sank faster.

[machogirl]

odd considering it was pulled up and looked like a complete wreck and almost unrecognizable.

[rodguy911]

I wonder if they did take photos of the people in the water and we are just not seeing them due to whatever reason?