Okay for the tower, but was no one outside walking around who could have heard it? Staff, anyone? Just seems odd.
At three A M in the fog? Even if I had to go outside for a smoke, I wouldn’t have been walking around.
On my job, official information is supposed to come from the PIO, or at least a department director. But if you tell that to a reporter, they’re going to keep arguing and if you keep talking, there’s a chance you’ll slip up. Unless you’re very good at stonewalling or willing to say no comment and hang up, your best bet is to imply that you don’t have the information.
The best way to do that is to say that X will be making an announcement after they’ve verified who was on shift. And don’t shift from that exact statement. It’s not a lie. Even if X already knows, the announcement will be at a later point in time than the verification. X isn’t going to announce anything until they know other things, too, but that’s not your decision.
“It was not immediately clear,” sometimes means “the bastards aren’t telling us, yet.”
Two extra taps. But I don’t have a problem with you.
After 3 AM. I guess nobody was awake.
Well, three if you count the space bar. (But no problems here either!)
Not even the pilot.
Doesn’t the tower have to fill out a checklist or something? You know, like, flight approaching - flight landed - flight cleared the runway. Don’t they use some sort of strip-based system just to prevent such an occurrence?
If the flight bothered to talk to the tower they do.
Update. Still a bit of a mystery though.
Here is a POSSIBLE scenario, which is entirely SPECULATION, but which would be a plausible reason why this sort of thing could happen undetected for hours.
First, remember the pilot is not “authorized” to fly in “foul weather” - meaning this is a VFR pilot who is trained to fly by visual references and not solely on instruments. He is flying at night, when visibility is reduced. That’s not inherently a bad thing, but you are far more likely to wander into low/no visibility without realizing it at night than during the day (and, sad to say, I know from experience VFR pilots can get into instrument weather even during the day without intending to do so).
So, at some point he realizes he can’t see where he’s going. At this point he has no choice, he has to fly relying on the instruments even if he isn’t trained to do so. Now, getting a private pilot’s license does require you do some training in this area but it’s intended for emergency use only, primarily to get you quickly back to VFR conditions. For the VFR pilot, doing this can be an overwhelming mental task leaving little spare brainpower for either communication or navigation. Not to mention a brown trouser level of stress.
Now, given that situation, calling for help is actually a pretty good idea, and as noted in the most recent link if you don’t know the nearest airport’s dedicated frequency there is a universal emergency frequency (121.5, it’s the same the world over) on which you can call for help, it’s monitored by every tower and even a number of aircraft. Heading for a big airport makes sense - it’s going to be the place most likely to have people at 3 am who might be able to render assistance, and it’s also going to be the place with landing aids/lights that you can utilize to land in crap conditions.
Why didn’t he call the tower? Even if you’re someplace where the tower is officially closed making that call won’t hurt you, someone might be listening. It is possible he was so occupied with just keeping the airplane upright that he didn’t have the mental energy to spare to make that call (when I had to make an emergency landing off airport in heavy fog at a certain point I stopped trying the radio and just focused on flying/landing the airplane). Or he could have been well and truly lost and trying to call on a frequency for a completely different airport.
As to why he wasn’t on radar - he was flying a C172. I’ve never had a problem with one of those appearing on radar. I have had problems with radar trying to spot C150’s and smaller, but C172’s seem to show up very reliably. However, VFR pilots encountering dropping visibility often start flying lower and lower in order to keep in sight of landmarks, which are mostly on the ground. It is possible that he was flying too low to show up on radar even if he was high enough to clear local obstacles (airport radar doesn’t usually go all the way down to the ground because stuff like hills and buildings would continually throw back a signal).
**
So… pilot in conditions he isn’t trained for, flying too low for radar, too busy to communicate or using the wrong frequency crashes in heavy fog at night at an airport, far enough away from the tower so the crash can’t be seen in those conditions, at the wee hours of the morning when few people will be around otherwise who might see it.**
Yeah, I can see that happening.
Remember - totally speculation, but that’s a possible explanation.
Also, the pilot and plane were Canadian, and invisible to Americans.
no1 = 3 taps
no one = 6 taps (include the space key)
And I also don’t have a problem with you or anyone else in this thread that I would be allowed to Pit.
Here’s 16 taps: Drop the hijack.
Hal Briston – MPSIMS Moderator
I appreciate the extra effort you put into this note. Well done.
The stories I have seen on this also mention that the airport has video footage of the plane circling the airport for a while in the time prior to the crash. Is this confirmed and where would the footage have come from?