Can the door be jettisoned in an emergency by pulling the hinge pins, like some other light a/c? The linked news articles says that the military pilots reported the door as “open”, but presumably the slipstream would have pushed it more or less shut again after he bailed out if it had just been opened normally, which likely wouldn’t have been visible under flare illumination at night.
Nope. It’s not that type of light aircraft. The Piper line (I haven’t flown the Lancer, but I have flown the Warrior and Archer which share many design features) isn’t designed for easy in-flight exits nor is there any sort of emergency door release. In fact, if the main door is jammed the “emergency exit” on the Warrior is the baggage compartment. Ha-ha-ha. I’m small and reasonably flexible, but I have strong doubts I could manage that, much less the more typical six foot tall amply padded American pilot you frequently find in such aircraft.
Certainly, if you unlock the door while in flight you can really feel the pressure of the slipstream. If you take off with the door slightly ajar the slipstream tends to push it closed, or at least not very open. I haven’t tried opening the door all way in flight (for one thing, I’m took short of arm to do that from the pilot seat) but it may be that once you get it all the way open the slipstream will tend to keep it open. I also know of at least one instance where the door of Piper was pulled off while in flight, but that involved a tornado, not a bail out over Alabama. The upshot is that I have no problem with the idea that intercepting aircraft could observe the airplane door was ajar.
He must have had a decent autopilot for it to maintain anything like normal flight with him moving around and crawling out the door, though - just opening a door does make the plane want to start turning, and him moving around would affect the weight and balance. It wouldn’t be as bad as some of the really, really small airplanes I’ve flown, but it would still have some effect.
Anyhow, he’s in a world of shit if he gets brought in by the authorities. Declaring false emergencies is bad enough. Abandoning a perfectly good airplane in flight, only to have it crash near residential areas is… well, he’s not just looking at fines but probably jail time on top of it. If he thought he was in legal and financial trouble before he certainly is now.
Sorry, correction - I misidentified the aircraft. It’s a Piper Malibu, not a Lancer.
Reminds me of a Columbo plot. Johnny Cash parachutes from a plane leaving his wife drugged up to die in the crash, cleverly breaking his leg to show how narrow his escape was.
If we could only convince this guy he left a vital piece of evidence at the crash site and wait in the bushes at night for him to turn up.
At the very least he purposely crashed a pretty expensive aircraft.
Was it his? Was it paid off?
How much do they cost?
Even if everyone else were to forgive and forget, I bet somebody wants a wad of cash for a now crumpled aircraft !
Supposedly he owned a couple aircraft, it could have been his.
Around 2 million. The exact amount depends on equipment, state of the engine, and a bunch of other things, but definitely in the seven digits.
Presumably it was insured - if nothing else the insurance company will be reluctant to pay out on a deliberately crashed airplane.
I wish to update about the door issue - I looked up the Piper Malibu a bit and it’s a *pressurized *airplane, which means the door set up is probably significantly different than what I’m familiar with the Pipers I’ve flown. It would be even less likely to have an “emergency jettison” though, clearly, it CAN be opened in flight (though equally clearly the pressure had to be equal on both sides to open it) as this yahoo proved.
This is the best entertainment in days.
Failed investment broker fakes his own death by trying to bail out of a plane that he hopes will crash into the ocean.
- He calls in an emergency. (small planes disapear with out a trace, no reason to mayday.)
- Not enough fuel to reach the Gulf, or Auto pilot is set wrong.
- Guard or was it the AirForce was scrambled, finds the plane. STILL IN THE AIR, but with no pilot. I bet he left his transponder on.
- Oops, fighter jet guys see no broken windscreen and the door is open.
- Fighter jets follow the plane as it runs out of fuel and returns to earth. (I love that part)
- He Runs into a local and says his canoe overturned.
- Gets a ride from the local law to a hotel.
- Escapes the hotel into the woods.
- Is now a fugitive on a red motorcycle that he had in storage.
This is just so funny. This guy actually had the balls to bail out of a small aircraft while it was in autopilot. He had to open the damn door that is not meant to be opened while the aircraft is in flight.
Crashed a very expensive airplane and is now on the run with whatever he can carry on a motorcycle.
All assets frozen.
And now, the whole damn country is looking for this guy. Ha.
And when they DO catch him he probably won’t be allowed bail because he is, of course, a flight risk…
Dont tell you are here all week!
Poor guy, just another victim of the coporate bailout.
And with the economy plummeting like this, is it any surprise?
Wouldnt have been so bad if he had a golden parachute.
If only he had checked into a Holiday inn.
He knew the economic downturn would turn into a crash.
This incident has certainly impacted his bottom line.
Maybe he exited this door? That would be easily seen as open and wouldn’t push against the slipstream nearly as much.
It would have been really funny if he had floated down in his parachute into the mouth of a wood chipper.
This guy was just plane crazy.
Not only that, but for a pilot he had a pretty poor attitude!
I’ll bet this retard didn’t even bother obtaining a corpse so if his plan did succeed, there’d at least be a body in the wreckage. (The absence of a dead pilot would raise a serious red flag amongst investigators, wouldn’t it?)
Always, always keep a fresh dead body on hand for contingency purposes!
Way ahead of ya.
ETA: On the other hand, lack of a body probably wouldn’t have been an issue if the plane could have made it to crash in the Gulf.
Also, no need at all for a mayday call, IMO. If he was flying high enough that hypoxia would be a concern, then people might figure that it was another freaky case like that golfer whose plane flew for hours on autopilot while pilot & passengers were unconscious or dead.
It’s a royal PITA keeping fresh bodies on hand, and commercial freezer space is expensive.
He could have skipped right to step 9 and been ahead of the game!
It appears he wanted this to be a case of accidental death rather than suicide - hence the reason he reported the emergency. If his plane hadn’t been seen in the air, and if it had actually made it to the gulf, most people would have probably assumed he was digesting with the fishes (rephrased for PETA: he was digesting with the sea kittens). I wonder if he had a life insurance policy on himself - in a new assumed identity of course - that he was expecting to collect?
I have to give him credit - he kept cool under pressure with the canoe story, at least enough to prevent initial suspician, and he already had his escape route planned and stocked with supplies as shown by the nearby motorcycle in storage. I’d lay odds that that isn’t his only storage facility with supplies and vehicles.
It appears he has been caught. Worst. Flight. From. Justice. Ever.
Funny you should say that!
This happened only a few miles from where my husband is working. He and his brother own a fuel wood operation, supplying wood chips to the local paper mills. They use one of these types of wood chippers.
