Posted on 03/17/2006 8:02:14 PM PST by VeniVidiVici
Plane crash near Charleston, WV. Plane was being escorted as it was not communicating with tower. No indication yet of foul play.
Waiting for news to catch up.
Admin Mod, no link as of yet. Please delete if need be due to this.
Seriously, I know nothing about small planes...but isn't it a stretch if he was going Montana to Minnesotsa fly over Wisconsin and Chicago but crashed in VA? How do you go that far incapacitated, not run out of fuel and more importantly, what does this have to do with Homeland Security?!
See #45 about DHS.
Story is that he did run out of fuel. Here is the only other thing I can find so far. At least the WV news is starting to pick it up.
Check out the links in #35 for more answers.
I'm trying to dig up a little something from the LSM websites linked to this thread and other sites for info myself.
His flight path took him right over the Chicago area and it looks that's why DHS got involved. L8R
Thanks L4T! Wonder where he flew here that sent off alarms? Over Sears mayhaps?
Thanks VVV!
Not a stretch, check out the flight path in post 66. It looks like he made a shallow turn and passed out. The autopilot held a straight line course until he ran outta gas.
Concidering that he overflew Chicago, I bet King Richie II pee'd in his pants . . .
Even before 9/11, if a plane failed to respond to air traffic control, I'm sure that eventually the USAF would get involved (as they did with Payne Stewart's jet).
Since he was flying at 27,000 feet, he had to file an instrument flight plan and be under constant radar tracking and ATC control, just like a jetliner. As soon as he missed a turn and failed to respond, chances are the FAA would call Homeland Security and it would go from there. Overflying a major city darn well might've caused them to push the panic button a little faster, though.
That plane cruises at about 250 knots, and he might've had a good push from the prevailing winds aloft. Still, he was up there a good long time before he ran out of fuel.
}:-)4
So it's not pressurized? Ugh, man, I can't imagine flying for hours at FL270 stuck on an oxygen mask in an unpressurized cabin. That can't be comfortable.
}:-)4
I just picked Glasgow as an example, at that point I didn't know where the plane had originated. It doesn't change the reasoning much though.
If he was still at 27,000 feet, or anywhere near that, he'd be a "threat" to the entire Chicago area as he approached it. The path would not needed to go directly over the tower to be a threat to it.
What they had was an aircraft not responding to communications, heading more or less for Chicago. Had to make a lot of people pretty nervous. I'll have to go back and review where the aircraft was first intercepted. There are Air Guard fighter units at Duluth MN, Des Moines IA, Ft. Wayne IN, Selfridge ANGB MI and Toledo OH, that could have conducted the intercept(s).
And Truax Field near Madison, Wisconsin, which since the first intercept was over Wisconsin, may have been the unit that made the intercept. Madison is very close to the flight path of this aircraft. So the only question is did they have alert aircraft on call. Not all ANG or even regular USAF fighter units do at any given time, more now than on 9-10-01 of course.
A small plane bound for the Twin Cities crashed tonight in West Virginia after flying hundreds of miles off course.
The FAA says it lost contact with the pilot around 7pm central time before the plane reached the St. Paul area. The plane continued to fly southeast over Wisconsin and Illinois before crashing near Charleston, West Virginia around 9:30pm.
The National Transportation Safety Board is on the scene tonight investigating.
The FAA says the pilot was the only person on board the plane. The plane had been due to arrive at St. Paul's Holman Field sometime tonight.
The Beechcraft Baron took off from Montana late this afternoon. F-16 fighter jets checked on the plane over Madison tonight but couldn't make contact with the pilot.
We'll continue to follow this story and have the latest Saturday on KARE-11 News and KARE11.com.
Thank you JP. Not really anything new that I could find. It's hard enough getting the "big cities" to update their websites on the weekend much less the smaller towns.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11889699
WSAZ-TV
March 18
PUTNAM COUNTY, W.Va. - Breaking news about a mysterious plane that has crashed in Putnam County. The Winfield Fire Chief confirmed a twin-engine plane crashed in Putnam County on Rocky Step Road near Blue Lick Friday night at about 10:30pm.
The FAA believes the pilot became incapacitated while flying from Montana to Minnesota, and that the plane likely ran out of fuel. Only the pilot was on board, but emergency crews are not reporting his injuries.
The plane drew the attention of the FAA and Homeland Security after it flew off course and the pilot was not communicating with authorities--but the FAA now says they believe the pilot was not any type of security threat. Homeland Security initially contacted Kanawha County's 911 center as a precaution, but again the said there was no security threat.
The plane involved is a Beechcraft Baron multi-engine plane. It took off from Montana, headed to St. Paul, Minnesota, but was on auto-pilot and continued to fly off course.
F-16 fighter jets checked on the plane over Wisconsin, but couldn't make contact with the pilot.
Stay tuned to WSAZ for more information.
A couple of updates:
http://www.wchstv.com/newsroom/wv/news1.shtml
(snip) Officials are investigating why a plane crashed in West Virginia hundreds of miles away from its original destination.
The twin-engine Beech 56T-C crashed about 250 feet from a house in a rural area near Winfield.
No one on the ground was injured, but officials say the pilot was killed. ...
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/314903.html
(snip) The plane left Glendive, Mont. Friday afternoon and was scheduled to land in St. Paul later in the day. Officials lost contact with the plane around 7 p.m. while it was flying more than 26,000 feet above Ohio.
It went down about 5 miles north of Charleston around 9:30 p.m., according to Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Cory.
Leon Baker, who manages Logan Community Airport in Glendive, said the plane, a twin turboprop, was flown by his longtime friend, William Cammack, 56, president of C&H Chemical, a cleaning supply company. ...
I also heard on the local radio news that officials say the pilot was disabled in some way, as in incapacitated.
Maybe the pilot was incapacitated (heart attack?) and couldn't communicate.
Thanks, Abigail.
Hey Armed, any idea what your guys in Boone County were doing last night? They are saying the plane crashed 5mi N. of Charleston. Kinda puts it out of your jurisdiction. :-)
thanks so much for finding this flutters!
thanks for the info Gato!
thanks Moose for this info!
Did he die?
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