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Mooney N111JP Missing


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A private airplane destined for the Twin Cities and missing since late Wednesday afternoon was found in a river near its departure airport south of Duluth, aviation authorities said.

 

http://www.startribune.com/search-is-on-for-small-airplane-that-failed-to-arrive-in-crystal-from-moose-lake/509685672/

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I wonder if he had mechanical issues and tried a water landing? FlightAware shows the originating flight out of Crystal and the data cuts out a few miles from Moose Lake. There is no data for the Moose Lake to Crystal leg as the aircraft never made it high enough. As you see in the second image the Wx doesn't look ideal. I flew my bird in the same weather system about two hours prior (and I'm 200 miles straight East of Moose Lake). This was an extremely slow moving system and most of outer bands of green was above 10,000 feet and not dropping any rain. At the time of his flight you can see the heaviest part of the storm was right where he was flying....I just don't understand... If he would have just waited a couple hours...

N111JP.jpg

N111JP_b.jpg

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12 hours ago, tigers2007 said:

I wonder if he had mechanical issues and tried a water landing? FlightAware shows the originating flight out of Crystal and the data cuts out a few miles from Moose Lake. There is no data for the Moose Lake to Crystal leg as the aircraft never made it high enough. As you see in the second image the Wx doesn't look ideal. I flew my bird in the same weather system about two hours prior (and I'm 200 miles straight East of Moose Lake). This was an extremely slow moving system and most of outer bands of green was above 10,000 feet and not dropping any rain. At the time of his flight you can see the heaviest part of the storm was right where he was flying....I just don't understand... If he would have just waited a couple hours...

flightaware tracks and weather -   It overlays the weather at the end of the flight.   So not always the most accurate representation of conditions at the time.

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True but this was a very slow moving system and it would have only have been a 38 min flight. I will say that the radar image didn't quite reflect what I saw on the ground (or flew through). Here is the radar portrayal for my return flight about two hours before the accident.

 

 

wx_at_1435CDT.jpg

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Always sad to see these.

Here are some Metars for Moose Lake at the expected time of departure below, courtesy of a BT poster.

Note the light rain going to moderate rain and lowering overcast ceiling to 1400' right at the time of departure. Also note the 3C temp drops to 2C at the 20:36Z metar at the time of departure time with it dropping to 1C in another 20 min and then 0C and snow shortly after that. Within 45 min of the expected departure time the vis had dropped to 2 1/2 sm in light snow with 800' ceiling.

From his arrival earlier that day we see his last radar hit was at 2100', which is only about 1000' AGL, so since the plane never got high enough to get a single radar return on departure, it pretty likely the plane didn't get to more than 1000' AGL. And with an overcast ceiling at 1400' agl, the plane probably didn't get to IMC conditions yet.

Weather was well above departure minimums at 300' and 1 mile but  getting so little altitude begs the questions if he hit an obstacle. But the departure mins don't list any low and near obstacles for this airport so he should have had a clear shot out. NOTAMs do show an unlit obstacle but quite a ways south of the field and winds would have had him climbing north. Unless gusty winds got significantly worse at climb out, perhaps with downdrafts,  to impede his climb performance its hard to imagine the plane hit something. But the rapidly deteriorating weather could have had him rushed to get out of there before it got worse.

Another clue would be to know how far away from the airport the plane went down. I could see a river coming out of Moosehead lake to the north on Google Earth, but that looks a little small to be the river depicted in the picture with the boat nearby. Anybody have an idea?

Hopefully the preliminary may shed some light on what may have gone bad but engines failures are very rare.


METAR KMZH 082015Z AUTO 06007G16KT 10SM -RA BKN016 OVC024
04/00 A3006 RMK AO2=

SA 08/05/2019 20:16-> 
METAR KMZH 082016Z AUTO 06005G15KT 10SM -RA BKN016 OVC024
04/00 A3006 RMK AO2=

SA 08/05/2019 20:35-> 
METAR KMZH 082035Z AUTO 04006G15KT 5SM RA OVC014 03/00 A3005
RMK AO2=

SA 08/05/2019 20:36-> 
METAR KMZH 082036Z AUTO 04007G15KT 5SM RA OVC014 02/00 A3005
RMK AO2=

SA 08/05/2019 20:55-> 
METAR KMZH 082055Z AUTO 05008G15KT 3SM -RA BKN010 OVC017
01/00 A3004 RMK AO2 P0001=

SA 08/05/2019 21:15-> 
METAR KMZH 082115Z AUTO 04011G16KT 2 1/2SM -SN OVC008 01/00
A3003 RMK AO2 P0002=

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11 minutes ago, thinwing said:

From blurry pic looks like cockpit area crushed,spanwise crushing both wings,aft fuselage bent and displaced...stall spin into shallow water?

I saw another pic. right wing looked good.  Left wing not so good.  looks like the bank there is pretty soft.  We are not supposed to speculate that it could be a stall spin.

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It's always sobering to hear about awful events like this. Even if these posts do invite speculation that is sometimes off the mark, I'm glad they appear here as long as they are respectful to the deceased.  The potential for air frame ice seems like it was quite high.  Certainly my recent IR has taken me closer to such dangers that I would have never been approached without it.  Terrifying anecdotes are often effective at making us take the sterile facts more seriously.

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19 hours ago, carusoam said:

Dr. Stillwell will be missed...

It may have been crummy weather, but the man had an IR...

Prayers,

Prayers yes and it totally sucks for his family. 

Having an IR does not mean anything. 

I have an IR and am hundreds of miles from my intended destination this morning. Had to divert flying a multi engine jet. Sometimes you just need to be on the ground In a hotel.  

 

F5ED834C-473B-4C17-A6BD-DF1B6D36EB11.jpeg

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6 minutes ago, Jim Peace said:

Prayers yes and it totally sucks for his family. 

Having an IR does not mean anything. 

I have an IR and am hundreds of miles from my intended destination this morning. Had to divert flying a multi engine jet. Sometimes you just need to be on the ground In a hotel.  

 

F5ED834C-473B-4C17-A6BD-DF1B6D36EB11.jpeg

Even this flying lawnmower driver got trapped in Houston by that radar picture

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I was on a flight as a passenger last night that didn't make it's destination either. SEA to IAH but diverted because of that storm over Houston. With a full career of almost full time travel for business, and millions of miles flown, I've had countless diversions and disruptions for weather. But last night was the first time weather has gotten in the way and IMPROVED my travel plans. 

ATC gave us a hold and told us to expect at least an hour in the hold. We didn't have the fuel for that so diverted to Austin. My original itinerary was SEA to AUS connecting in IAH. So on account of the weather I got a non-stop from SEA to AUS and home an hour earlier than scheduled.

1571103992_ScreenShot2019-05-10at5_28_57PM.thumb.png.d0dca224a31758a23bbcf8bea47db974.png

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20 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

I was on a flight as a passenger last night that didn't make it's destination either. SEA to IAH but diverted because of that storm over Houston. With a full career of almost full time travel for business, and millions of miles flown, I've had countless diversions and disruptions for weather. But last night was the first time weather has gotten in the way and IMPROVED my travel plans. 

ATC gave us a hold and told us to expect at least an hour in the hold. We didn't have the fuel for that so diverted to Austin. My original itinerary was SEA to AUS connecting in IAH. So on account of the weather I got a non-stop from SEA to AUS and home an hour earlier than scheduled.

1571103992_ScreenShot2019-05-10at5_28_57PM.thumb.png.d0dca224a31758a23bbcf8bea47db974.png

I had a thing like that happen to me once. Flying Shanghai to anchorage then deadhead home to ontario California. About halfway into the flight a volcano goes off in Alaska. 

We diverted to Ontario, customs met us on the plane and I walked off the jet, got into my car which was parked just yards away and drove home like a rockstar. 

Sometimes life just works. 

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You did not want to be anywhere anyway near Houston last night in anything flying.   The storm went over very slowly.  Then regened and started throwing out huuuuuge chunks of Ice out the backside of the storm.   Then marble sized hail.   New roofs all over the hood.

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5 hours ago, Jim Peace said:

Prayers yes and it totally sucks for his family. 

Having an IR does not mean anything. 

I have an IR and am hundreds of miles from my intended destination this morning. Had to divert flying a multi engine jet. Sometimes you just need to be on the ground In a hotel.  

 

Sorry Jim,

My writing is still improving...

Technically we are in total agreement... it just didn’t come across that well...

I wasn’t suggesting one would fly IFR into the crummy weather... the IR hasn’t made anyone superhuman yet...

The benefit of having an IR... At one time, a pilot has the ability to make stronger decisions regarding weather...

Without the IR, some unfortunate pilots have fallen victim by simply flying into IMC....

Thunderstorms and icing challenges are much better known and understood by pilots that study that higher level of weather.

 

Whatever happened to this flight, it didn’t register altitude on FlightAware... where the flight earlier in the day showed things working pretty well....

Thanks for helping me clarify my writing... :)

Best regards,

-a-

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15 hours ago, Yetti said:

You did not want to be anywhere anyway near Houston last night in anything flying.   The storm went over very slowly.  Then regened and started throwing out huuuuuge chunks of Ice out the backside of the storm.   Then marble sized hail.   New roofs all over the hood.

It busteed up a few windshields of the employees cars at Mooney Intl. a couple of days ago, trashed a few planes (no new Mooneys) on the ramp at KERV. Kept me from repositioning a plane to KERV also. I just sat it out here in beautiful FL.

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On 5/10/2019 at 4:37 PM, Jim Peace said:

Seems like a case of flying a lawnmower with wings into an area meant for multi engine jets. 

Clouds everywhere and freezing temps aloft. 

You have no idea what caused the crash Jim, none of us do.  It is entirely possible that this guy didn’t do anything wrong and wasn’t taken out by weather but just had a bad day managing a mechanical failure. Your synopsis is heavy on the proselytizing and light on data. I’m sure everyone is as impressed as I that you fly transport category jets to exotic places.

Perhaps you could petition the NTSB directly to have “flying lawnmower“ listed as a legitimate probable cause. Barring that, maybe just stick with regaling us with stories of your adventures or better yet, actually contributing to the discussion.  Save the proselytizing for church...

Edited by Shadrach
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