Mooney M20K down in Switzerland

[Urs_Wildermuth]

Crashed yesterday on a flight from Donaueschingen towards Albenga near the resort of Braunwald, canton Glarus in Switzerland.

News report in German with pictures

2 on board, on pilot (64) and one pax, both perished.

What went on is unclear. They departed in the evening from Donaueschingen direction Albenga and crashed half an hour after departure after apparently sending a distress message. The weather in the Alps was bad with cloud and turbulence, however a picture of the crash site taken by a webcam at the time shows the area in VMC with a cloud cover above it. General Aviation Forecast showed all alpine crossings to be closed for VFR due to low cloud over the passes.

The destination was closed already at the time of the crash, so one wonders why they still tried to go there.

[steingar]

The Swiss Mooney crashed, what a pity.  RIP to the occupants, raw deal.

[mooneygirl]

That is so very sad. My thoughts and prayers are with the families.  Every take-off is optional. There is no trip or mission that is worth your life. RIP.

 

[PTK]

RIP. Prayers for their loved ones.

Wasn't there a Swiss Mooney that had flown over here and back a few years ago? I wonder if this was the one.

[neilpilot]

1 hour ago, PTK said:

RIP. Prayers for their loved ones.

Wasn't there a Swiss Mooney that had flown over here and back a few years ago? I wonder if this was the one.

Since the victims were German, it's unlikely that the Mooney was Swiss registered.  IIRC that may have been Flemming & Angela Pederesen in HoneyMooney, HB-DVN.  Their's is an M20E, whereas a M20K crashed. 

[Hank]

1 hour ago, PTK said:

RIP. Prayers for their loved ones.

Wasn't there a Swiss Mooney that had flown over here and back a few years ago? I wonder if this was the one.

Honeymooney flew over here a couple of years ago [again]. It's an E, with a Swiss flag on the tail.

[rbridges]

Holy cow!  The wreckage looks awful.

[kortopates]

Very sad indeed. Neither the article nor anyone implied it was a Swiss Mooney. Far more likely its German registered since the occupants were German and it departed Germany for Tuscany per Urs. 

My first curiosity was if the flight was VFR after Urs description on the wx. The article doesn't say but implies it may have been with this remark: "The accident is not yet clear. The weather was not perfect, according to Skyguide spokesman Barrosa but the conditions were fulfilled for a visual flight."

It also says this was not likely to be a CFIT since "The fact that the pilot could still make a "Mayday" suggests that the pilot did not fly into the terrain in the fog, but saw the crash coming. The cause of the crash is now clarified by the Swiss security investigation center SUST."

The one picture of the wreckage though suggest it came in at high rate of speed, perhaps pretty flat. 

Anyway, always sad to see these. I work with a half dozen German registered K's - hope it wasn't any of them. 

[Urs_Wildermuth]

Paul,

the registration is known by now, it was D-EPPW. Hope it's not one of your customers.

PIC is said to have been 64 years of age, pax 79.

As for the conditions, there is a webcam image which shows the impact zone at the time.  It would suggest that the place was VFR indeed, however the planes last altitude recorded was higher. This place is at roughly 6000 ft while the last altitude was 7500 ft.

There are several questions open to this. A) why did they depart Donaueschingen when they knew their destination was closing at their departure time? Further, the Swiss general Aviation forecast for the area was declaring the Alps closed with most of the passes and VFR routes across being below minima. I looked at the situation today at work and there was no way they could have crossed the Alps further on.

Earlier the same day, a Swiss Airforce PC7 was lost in the morning in central Switzerland in an apparent CFIT. The Alps are a very dangerous zone to fly in if there is cloud and there are too many who underestimate them.

[neilpilot]

Owner of D-EPPW was Peter Drewes, who was piloting at the time of the accident.

[M20S Driver]

The flightradar24 track is strange looking...   It maintained altitude but the speed dropped to 60-70 knots.  It seems to have hit a mountain wave with auto pilot "on" or trying too hard to climb out!!

[kortopates]

Paul,
the registration is known by now, it was D-EPPW. Hope it's not one of your customers.
PIC is said to have been 64 years of age, pax 79.
As for the conditions, there is a webcam image which shows the impact zone at the time.  It would suggest that the place was VFR indeed, however the planes last altitude recorded was higher. This place is at roughly 6000 ft while the last altitude was 7500 ft.

There are several questions open to this. A) why did they depart Donaueschingen when they knew their destination was closing at their departure time? Further, the Swiss general Aviation forecast for the area was declaring the Alps closed with most of the passes and VFR routes across being below minima. I looked at the situation today at work and there was no way they could have crossed the Alps further on.
Earlier the same day, a Swiss Airforce PC7 was lost in the morning in central Switzerland in an apparent CFIT. The Alps are a very dangerous zone to fly in if there is cloud and there are too many who underestimate them.

Thanks Urs and@neilpilot, D-EPPW was not one of our clients. Sad, just the same.
I'll have to check out the radar data too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[carusoam]

That flight radar data is very odd... short flight (recorded) time with giant ground speed variations. Last recorded altitude is quite high compared to the altitude earlier in the flight... Step Climb from 4,500' to 7,500' in eight minutes with a level off for a couple of minutes at 6500' according to the radar data...

The ground speed goes from 199 to 64 (during the first climb) to 146 during level flight at 6,500'. Ground Speed was only in the low 90s at the end of the flight, as it climbed through 9,300 at 429fpm'.  FA notes the plane had arrived and had that last data point...

The steady part of the flight was all heading about 150°.  When the wild ride began, the heading varied In an S shape towards the south. 153°, 191°, and back to 175°... the wild ride lasted for approximately 10 minutes...

The four pictures show every leading edge heavily crushed, with the 231's tail sitting in close proximity to the main wing.

Was it a VFR flight gone into IMC?  Climbing to avoid the unseen MTNs..?

Will the European agency investigate the accident?

Prayers for our lost brothers... they fought bravely for that last 10 minutes... those instruments would be hard to interpret during that flight.

Best regards,

-a-

FlightAware data...

Speed and altitude chart...

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DEPPW/history/20170912/1634Z/tracklog

 

Ground Track...

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DEPPW

 

Prior flights look like VFR altitudes being used, and groundtrack and altitude are controlled tightly as if by AP...

 

 

[Urs_Wildermuth]

6 hours ago, carusoam said:

Was it a VFR flight gone into IMC?  Climbing to avoid the unseen MTNs..?

Will the European agency investigate the accident?

Possibly, even though the crash site was  fully VMC at the time of the accident. It is going to be investigated by the Swiss SUST, their NTSB.

 

6 hours ago, carusoam said:

they fought bravely for that last 10 minutes

Not sure how to call this. In the last 10 minutes they most probably were flying in turbulent conditions but there should have been time and space to turn around. I have flown in that area and with the weather and turbulence there was, my primary question is, why did they try to go at all. It was quite clear that a VFR flight through the alps was impossible that day, and if they had not even watched the weather, listening to the news should have done it... in the morning of that day, a Swiss Military PC7 crashed in similar circumstances a few miles west of there. Now if a turboprop trainer with the best pilots of the country in terms of navigation abilities in the alps can't do it, then certainly not a private pilot with a 200 hp Mooney

 

Frankly, the Swiss alps are one of the most dangerous areas to fly in Europe and need respect and great care. This year alone this is the 4th accident with people killed in about 3 months time. It is more than obvious that a lot of pilots are NOT qualified to fly there and the question remains if for the future, more strict regulation is needed to protect these people from themselves. I hate myself saying that but the figures show that mountain flying is something that most PPL's in Europe are not qualified for. It may well have to do with the fact that most PPL's fly way to few, some less than 10 hours per year due to high cost and time constraints. In any case, the current series of accidents are almost asking for something to be done.

[Hank]

Would it help pilots mainfain proficiency if taxes and fees on aviation were reduced? Radical idea, but if that is wbat is keeping people gfom flying, then they are bad and need to go away . . .

[Piloto]

Flying over the Andes and Sierra Nevada mountains I learned that it could be risky when flying into a head wind. As the air passes over the mountains it creates a downdraft that can force you down. To avoid this I try to fly at least 2,000ft above the mountains. 

José

[kortopates]

I got a chance to compare the radar track's last recorded position to the accident site in google earth and I came up a distance of about 6nm further south from the last radar hit and the accident site. 6 minutes before the accident, the radar data showed the plane in a climb to 6700' when ground speed dropped to the low 60's. Then just before the accident, it leveled, build up speed and then was climbing again at 9300'  with airspeed decaying to the low 90's at the last recorded point. Straight ahead of them was higher terrain with a ridge line as high as 9500', which must have been obscured by the clouds. Impossible to tell at this point how much terrain clearance the plane has as it approached the ridge line and went over but it would seem not much at all; especially give the weather. Could the pilot really have been trying to stay under an overcast and clear the mountains? But the plane managed to make it over and came down directly on the the other side of the high ridge line. With the reported turbulence and strong winds, downdrafts seems very plausible at this point. But with no radar data near the crash site it leaves us with little to go on.

The much taller Sierra Nevada mountains are in my backyard so to speak, and I've flown around them numerous times to my favorite skiing destination. 60 to even 100 kt winds in the passes are not uncommon when winds aloft are half that. Although wind direction is just as important as magnitude, I wouldn't dream of going near them with only 2000' of clearance - my profile is to cross at over 4K to 5K and also depart away from the mountains into smoother air to get to altitude in smooth air before turning towards them. Mountain obscuration adds another dimension to the challenges as well. Climb rate suffers dramatically in turbulence.  Wouldn't even consider departing if flying an NA aircraft. 

[Urs_Wildermuth]

7 hours ago, Hank said:

Would it help pilots mainfain proficiency if taxes and fees on aviation were reduced? Radical idea, but if that is wbat is keeping people gfom flying, then they are bad and need to go away . . .

For many that is the pet excuse. I used it for a while but it's pretty lame. In the end, many of us simply do not have the time to do this hobby the way it should be and don't have the nerve to call it quits. So maybe we need more regulation on this, not less, such as 100 hrs p.a. minimum time or re-examinations and maybe we need to stop people from flying into the mountaineous areas with special use airspace unless they are really qualified. But even then, 2 of the pilots who crashed in the alps recently were proficient enough and still crash.

[kortopates]

I don't think we're doing it any better here in the US and our 6th most common cause of accidents are fuel related exhaustion and starvation accidents.  Don't think we can blame anyone but ourselves on that and the majority of our accident rate. I think it boils down to better pre-flight planning, recognizing the risks and applying risk mitigation strategy's in the form of leaving outs and options and being as dynamic as the weather is while flying change the plan as necessary.  Just can't regulate ADM, nor is easy to gain the experience necessary to grow in such an unforgiving environment.

[steingar]

Every airplane purchase I've made has had a concomitant investigation of the NTSB accident databases to see how pilots went wrong and died in the airframes, obviously to try and avoid making the same mistakes myself.  The vast majority of fatals in my aircraft, the M20C, were in mountainous terrain.