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Subscribe to RSSThe U.S. Coast Guard is trying to recover the pilot after his plane went down after flying in circles for nearly three hours. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
A small plane with an apparently incapacitated pilot that crashed just after noon Eastern Time in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday has sunk, the Associated Press reported, citing Coast Guard officials. Crews flying over the site saw no signs that its pilot survived the crash, the report said.
The twin-engine propeller Cessna 421 went down Thursday about three hours after two F-15 fighter jets tried to make contact with the unresponsive pilot, who was thought to be the only person on the plane.
The pilot was identified as Peter Hertzak of Slidell, La., NBC station WSDU of New Orleans reported.
Coast Guard Chief John Edwards said the plane landed right-side up on the ocean surface and floating, but aircraft monitoring the scene did not see a life raft deploy and never made contact with the pilot, the AP reported.
Air traffic controllers alerted the Coast Guard after they lost radio contact with the pilot about 9 a.m. EDT. The aircraft was circling erratically over the Gulf of Mexico, according to Coast Guard District 8 Chief Petty Officer John Edwards in New Orleans.
Tracker shows plane's erratic flight path
Air Force jets dispatched to look into the plane were unable to see the pilot because of fog and icing that obscured the plane's windows, Coast Guard officials said. The icing is seen as a possible sign that the aircraft lost cabin pressure and the pilot was rendered unconscious.
A search-and-rescue operation has been launched to locate the Cessna. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
The two F-15s from the New Orleans National Guard were already on a mission over the Gulf, according to the AP report, citing a release from Edwards. The Jacksonville Air Traffic Control Center asked the military if jets could check on the plane, which was orbiting near one of Eglin Air Force Base's warning areas over the Gulf, Edwards said. Eglin is on Florida's Panhandle.
A federal official says the plane took off Thursday morning from Slidell, La., en route to Sarasota, Fla.
It flew until just after noon and then crashed into the water 120 miles west of Tampa, Fla., according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Daniel Compton / airport-data.co
The Cessna that went down in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday.
In a search and rescue effort launched in the hours before the plane crashed, the Coast Guard dispatched an HC-144 Ocean Sentry from Mobile, Ala., an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Clearwater, Fla., and the Coast Guard Cutter Coho, an 87-foot patrol boat homeported in Panama City, Fla., the Coast Guard web site said.
In a previous incident involving a "ghost plane,'' in 1999, the pilot — professional golfer Payne Stewart — and five passengers were incapacitated when their Learjet lost cabin pressure. The plane flew on for four hours before finally crashing in rural South Dakota. All six people were killed.
NBC's Pete Williams and Jay Blackman contributed to this report.
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I wish you folks would quit crying over the way the article was writtens. Plummets, cruises, lands, soft, hard. Who cares, the bottom line is the damn airplane is in the water.
Definately terrorism.
Definitely Aliens.
It's so sad to know there are so many ignorant people out there.. whats more sad is that you can actually sit on your ass and talk stupidity about someone whom has had such a terrible tragedy. He is someone's relative people!! Have some respect if not for him n his family at least for your selves.. the way you speak only shows the world what kind of mother you had bringing you up.. she should have had an abortion with you and avoided bring into this world such a cold hearted human. You guy's have no idea what that man went through or what happened to him!! HOW DARE YOU EVEN SPEAK LIKE THIS OF HIM IDIOTS I SAY IDIOTS!!
ppppppppppplllllbbbbbbbffffffft!
pssst, prozac time....
Modern aircraft will automatically take up a sustainable glide path until they hit the water if they do not have enough power to stay at elevation and no one is at the controls. buoyancy, if the plane does not break up on impact, will allow it to use it's wing tanks and other trapped air to stay buoyant and afloat. My Father put a 4 engine DC-4 into the Pacific Ocean after it lost 2 of it's engines, and it floated for 5 and 1/2 hours and he and his crew and passenger deployed a life raft and were picked up. This looks like the Pilot blacked out for some reason, regained consciousness enough to take the plane out of "auto pilot" and take in a lower altitude but then passed out again without re-engaging the autopilot that would have flown him untill the fuel ran out over Florida or beyond.
If he had a rapid loss of cabin pressure, he would have taken it into a dive to regain air, but, if he was sleeping, like many private pilots do in "Auto Pilot" on long trips and the cabin lost temperature control and oxygen slowly. while he was sleeping, and did not waken him until minimum levels we reached for the alarms to sound, then it is possible he might have woken up just long enough to take the plane out of Auto pilo, reduced throttle and put it into a dive before he lost consciousness again. The plane would have re-leveled it's self but the reduced throttle would have not been able to maintain "strait and level" flight long. All kinds of alarms would be going off in the cockpit until it finally hit the water.
It would sure be nice if aircraft could have a "Dead man Switch" that unless an input is received, when prompted during "Auto Pilot", the aircraft would automatically descend to 8,000 feet and take up a new heading toward land and the nearest airport then circle it and emit a mayday. Then if there was no response, a code could be given, issued by the Aircraft manufacturer that would turn it into a drone that could be landed safely by the tower.
If the guys name had been BILL I would have guesed that Harry Reid killed it
american
Maybe boner and the teapug, cut it's funding because it was a small plane?
Wow, 2 accidents in 13 years. We'd better push for legislation banning private aircraft.
Isn't it amazing how quickly the response to this aircraft, which was obviously not hijacked nor near any skyscrapers that could have been crashed into, was intercepted by military jets and the coast guard?
You may be thinking, "well in the wake of 9/11 our response to these anomalies has been stepped up", and the answer is a resounding NOPE, the same protocol was in place ON 9/11, the same protocol was in place BEFORE 9/11. The Alexander Payne incident, which was referenced in this story, took place BEFORE 9/11, and THAT plane was intercepted by 2 military fighters within 15 minutes of losing contact, AND they stayed with the aircraft until it crashed.
So where in the hell were these competent military personel on 9/11?????
No one seems to be able to answer that question, nor take responsibility for the lack of response and loss of life that could have potentially been avoided. Even IF on the judgement day, we find out that Usama Bin Laden, NO Khalid Sheik Mohammad, NO(quick, who is the flavor of the month terrorist responsible for 9/11?) is actually responsible for those attacks, what the hell happened to every single fail safe this country had in place to guard against such a catastrophe? Condoleeza Rice made a public statement last year during the televised Bush special regarding 9/11 that "the terrorists had compromised the presidents cell phone", and the she couldn't get in touch with him. REALLY, the terrorists had access to the information needed to accomplish this? I would think it would take a person who had infiltrated the secret service to accomplish such a feat. Oddly enough there is no mention of the presidents cell phone being "disabled" by terrorists in the 9/11 Commission report.
I'm sick of this ignorance, and the willingness of all but a select few in this nation to just set back and take the crap our government has shoveled out about 9/11.
For GOD sake, I would bet a majority of you here do not even know that no less than 5 of the would be hijackers are still alive, AND, that Donald Rumsfeld when confronted with this fact said "we really don't know who these people are". BUT, the government still stands on this "Official Story" with these same hijackers, even the living ones, even teaching it to our kids.
Stand UP to this ignorance and get your heads out of the sand.
If anything I have printed here is incorrect, PLEASE, I BEG YOU, PROVE ME WRONG, because I can't.
It took the Air Force 1 hour and 22 minutes to intercept the plane Payne Stewart was on. As far as jets scrambling to intercept on 9/11, NORAD is not automatically alerted when planes stray off course. They had to wait for the ATC's to call them and they didn't call them until the second plane hit the towers. The terrorists turned off the transponders on the planes so the ATC's had to try and identify the planes by process of elimination with 4500 planes in the air.
I think that proves you wrong quite well.
Probably just had to take a piss and forgot he didn't have pontoons. On the bright side though he wont be trying to land on the ocean any more.
7.62, is it hard trying to sound that stupid?
All of the horrid comments! He was a wonderful Dr who delivered my son and saved his
life. How very sad. Prayers for the family.
It's funny how so many people can read an article and interpret it a thousand different ways. The article says it was a right side up landing but then the plane did sink, no sign of the pilot. Everything else that was posted is merely from opinions of what happened to the pilot. I wonder if any of those monitoring this "strange flight" thought it to be a terror attack? I know I have developed a kind of "spidey" sense whenever I hear about such happenings.
Well he crashed and it is all over now - FISH FOOD!
Actually the Coast Guard when formed in 1790 was a branch of the Military, in 1915 it transferred to the Treasury Department, in 1967 it transferred to the Dept of Transportation and then in 2002 it transferred to Dept of Homeland Security
Payne Stewart was not "the pilot" on the plane which depressurized killing all aboard when it crashed. He was a passenger.
Iced up windows indicate loss of cabin pressure, same thing happened to Payne Stewart. If you get a pressure failure at high altitude then you only have seconds to get an oxygen mask, the cabin temperature also plummets to below zero (F).
.
Ladonna, Florida Native & Ohio Girl, you are probably right about it being like the plane the golfer was on, and it mentions that in the article.
Not being a pilot, I don't know how all this works, so maybe somebody out there knows, how come when they lose cabin pressure, they don't know it right away & parachute out?
For one thing, the loss could be gradual and simply render the crew unconscious. Even in the case of a sudden decompression, the crew doesn't have the quick don masks used in commercial aircraft.
Secondly, few private aircraft outside of those preforming aerobatics have the crew wearing a parachute.
Vid Adorno, are you saying that the Coast Guard is a part of Homeland Security & not the Armed Forces? The Coast Guard has been around since I was a child (if not before) & I'm 54. As far as I know, Homeland Security hasn't been around nearly that long?
The Secret Service is a really old service as well. Both were under the Treasury at one time. They were moved to Homeland Security when it was formed after 9/11/01; the Coast Guard had been put under the Department of Transportation when it was formed in the 1960s. The Secret Service was under Treasury because it fought counterfeiting; the Coast Guard because it fought smuggling, which was an attempt to avoid tariffs, which is why Coast Guard Cutters were at one time referred to as "Revenue Cutters". Many DHS assets were under other agencies at one time and then consolidated under DHS, presumably to improve co-ordination.
Planes - the safest way to travel! But in my car I just open the window if I need more oxygen.
No one thinks this sounds shady?
"went down Thursday about three hours after two F-15 fighter jets tried to make contact with the unresponsive pilot"
An unresponsive pilot flying erratically around an Air Force Base is bound to make someone nervous. Maybe nervous enough to shoot it down? JUST A POSSIBILITY
He wasn't around and Air Force base . He was out over the gulf.
He was close enough to be within range of their fighter planes....that qualifies as around it to me. I just find it an odd coincidence that after not responding to the pilots he mysteriously went missing.
Yeah, and when the USAF shot him down, then he circled around for hours before crashing. Don't know much about aircraft being shot down, do we, concerned?
No pilot likes to read about the death of a fellow pilot. Apparently, the cabin lost pressure, and the pilot did not react quickly enough, or did not have a supplemental oxygen source on board. The icing/fogging of the windows is consistent with a depressurized cabin at FL027 (remember Paine Stewart?). If the plane can be recovered, we will have to wait for the NTSB report for a final determination.
I am apalled at all the self-rightous, sactimonous 'bozos' who frequent these posts, and spew their hatred and political agendas. A person died today. He could have been a husband, definitely a son, and perhaps a brother. A little respect is in order here.
Thank you PilotHawkeye2. The victim in this crash was a respected OB/GYN specialist and plastic surgeon in Slidell, LA. So to all you nut jobs who are trying to make this anything more than an unfortunate accident, move on to something elase.
I'm with you MsLou. He delivered my son and saved his life when there were complications. He was a wonderful person and physician. He will be truly missed. :(
I believe there is an error in the article. I do not think that Cessna has a pressurized cabin to begin with. The last one that I was in actually had windows that opened. Probably the Air Force guys, used as they are to their own planes didn't realize that.
Except your are totally incorrect. The Cessna 421` is a pressurized twin. Cessna through the years has had several including the smaller 340 and the single engine 210P. Cessna also makes aircraft selling in the several million dollar range. Every small aircraft isn't a "Piper Cub".
Some of these comments are just horrid. Anyway, assuming this was a loss of cabin pressurization event, the pilot would have had only seconds to respond. The problem with hypoxia is that it sneaks up on you. You get blurry eyed, sleepy and disoriented. By the time you realize there is a problem you are already beginning to pass out. I am not a pilot nor an aviation expert. Isn't there a way to have an oxgen sensor rigged up to a supplemental oxygen source that doesn't require human intervention, maybe with an alarm, oxygen vented into the cockpit, or an autopilot mode that automatically descends to below 15,000 feet when a loss of oxygen is detected? This should be a solvable problem.
I'm wondering, if the Coast Guard knew the plane was in trouble and had already launched a rescue, why they were not on or near the scene when the plane went down. The article says the plane made a relatively soft landing and was floating upright. Why not get something in the water to keep the plane afloat? The issue with a story like this is, you never get the entire story. I just disappears.
My condolances to the family. It is a terrible sad thing no matter what happens.
"Near" the scene could be many miles. The aircraft didn't stay afloat more than a few minutes no doubt.
A drug deal gone "glub, glub glub".
Modern aircraft will automatically take up a sustainable glide path until they hit the water if they do not have enough power to stay at elevation and no one is at the controls. buoyancy, if the plane does not break up on impact, will allow it to use it's wing tanks and other trapped air to stay buoyant and afloat. My Father put a 4 engine DC-4 into the Pacific Ocean after it lost 2 of it's engines, and it floated for 5 and 1/2 hours and he and his crew and passenger deployed a life raft and were picked up. This looks like the Pilot blacked out for some reason, regained consciousness enough to take the plane out of "auto pilot" and take in a lower altitude but then passed out again without re-engaging the autopilot that would have flown him untill the fuel ran out over Florida or beyond.
If he had a rapid loss of cabin pressure, he would have taken it into a dive to regain air, but, if he was sleeping, like many private pilots do in "Auto Pilot" on long trips and the cabin lost temperature control and oxygen slowly. while he was sleeping, and did not waken him until minimum levels we reached for the alarms to sound, then it is possible he might have woken up just long enough to take the plane out of Auto pilo, reduced throttle and put it into a dive before he lost consciousness again. The plane would have re-leveled it's self but the reduced throttle would have not been able to maintain "strait and level" flight long. All kinds of alarms would be going off in the cockpit until it finally hit the water.
It would sure be nice if aircraft could have a "Dead man Switch" that unless an input is received, when prompted during "Auto Pilot", the aircraft would automatically descend to 8,000 feet and take up a new heading toward land and the nearest airport then circle it and emit a mayday. Then if there was no response, a code could be given, issued by the Aircraft manufacturer that would turn it into a drone that could be landed safely by the tower.