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Subscribe to RSSFour people died in the crash of small plane that disappeared after departing from a regional airport near Roanoke, Texas on Saturday.
A Texas Department of Safety helicopter located the downed Beechcraft Bonanza late Saturday night in Van Zandt County.
"The plane is completely destroyed," said Ronnie Daniell, Van Zandt Justice of the Peace. "It's just torn to pieces, pretty much, over a wide debris area."
The dead were aboard the aircraft, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Their names have not been released.
FAA spokesman Lynn Lunsford said the Mississippi-bound aircraft took off Saturday morning from Northwest Regional Airport at about 9:40 a.m.
A search started after air traffic controllers lost radar and radio contact with the plane 25 miles southeast of Terrell in Kaufman County.
Read the original story at NBCDFW.com
A graphic from Flight Aware shows the plane had a smooth takeoff headed southeast. Then, over the Terrell airport, it suddenly started an erratic route and stayed in the air for three and a half hours before crashing.
Federal regulators were scheduled to arrive at the crash site Sunday afternoon to begin their investigation.
The tail number of the single-engine plane belongs to Palm-L Aviation LLC. The FAA said the plane was built in 1985.
This is the second fatal crash in two weeks involving a plane that departed the Northwest Regional Airport in Roanoke.
A pilot and flight instructor died September 23 shortly after takeoff. The cause of that crash is still under investigation.
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Leave a Comment:
Hard to believe that in this day and age that in three and 1/2 hours no radio contact, erratic flight path and nothing was sent up to check it out. Even in a small plane they could have ended up in a populated area and caused a major catastrophe.
The FAA doesn't have aircraft on standby to "send up." Military fighters on alert aren't going to launch for a small civilian plane that's merely flying erratically. The article doesn't say if it was IFR or VFR, but I would imagine VFR is more likely, in which case they could have been sightseeing. That would look erratic on radar. And assuming they were in uncontrolled airspace, they wouldn't have been required to maintain radio contact either.
True good point.
Hard to believe that in this day and age that in three and 1/2 hours no radio contact, erratic flight path and nothing was sent up to check it out. Even in a small plane they could have ended up in a populated area and caused a major catastrophe.
It has happened before with 4 (four ) commercial aircraft flying erratically and the Air Guard was ordered to standdown by that Great American Patriot and National Hero in his own mind, Richard (the DICK) Cheney.
Civil Air Patrol is an auxiliary of the USAF. So yes, technically there are aircraft on standby. But usually they're only called if an aircraft has been declared missing because they failed to arrive at their planned destination via a filed flight plan. I don't believe they send CAP up just to "check out" someone flying around. That'd make for a potentially dangerous traffic situation.
I checked out the flight path of the aircraft on the website they mentioned, FlightAware. Based on what I saw, it looks like they tried to land at the airport several times.
Something they didn't mention in this article - the aircraft was possibly flying under Instrument Flight Rules, which means a flight plan was filed and the plane was required to remain in contact with air traffic controllers. As a pilot, you have the option to terminate this "plan" as soon as you have the airport in sight and plan to land. Heck, you have to file a flight plan for your flight to even show up on a website like FlightAware.
The airport they were going to didn't have a control tower, so it's possible that the pilot opted to remain with air traffic controllers so ATC could watch for traffic in the vicinity (especially if the pilot was planning on flying around a bit before landing).
The flight path shows the plane flying in relatively straight lines. This indicates that SOMEONE was in control of the plane for most of the flight. The one line which is wavy is possibly a passenger flying the airplane under the supervision of the pilot.
Lastly, the description of aircraft debris indicates impact at a high rate of speed. It's possible that the aircraft entered a stall or a spin at a low altitude and the pilot was unable to recover. The lack of a distress call pretty much rules out any sort of fuel starvation.
Just my $0.02.
May the souls of the Faithful Departed Rest in Peace. May God Bless their souls. The cause of the crash must be investigated since this is the second crash in that area. May God give the Strength and Courage to the Families and Relatives of the Deceased to Bear this Huge Loss. GOD Bless the Americans. GOD BLESS THE USA.
Kevin Valentine Moraes
Mira Road (Thane)