I presume that a diaper is worn, at least–well, I guess it depends.
ISWYDT. A bit late but hey 
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Hopefully I use the quote feature correctly. First time I use it.
Some of my humor is so dry, it can take weeks for it absorb enough moisture to sprout into a joke. I’m glad to see this one finally did 
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Apparently the airline staffing shortage is so bad, pilots and cabin crew from now bankrupt ExpressJet are being offered jobs at Piedmont and Envoy (two regional airlines that operate flights on behalf of American) without interviews.
Up this way (but rather south of where we live):
Without evidence, I’m guessing it was a Kenmore Air flight. They operate DHC-3 Otters.
Very interesting as Sgt Shultz used to say.
ExpressJet has been in out of the corporate ICU for a couple years now. Good in a sense it comprehensively collapsed before the temptation to cut corners got too great to ignore.
As a refugee from a multi-bankruptcy airline myself, there are lots of times to feel really bad for the idled employees. Right now, with the feeding frenzy at the rest of the industry, most of ExpressJet’s workers will be able to find better more stable work immediately, regardless of their specific job skill.
Hmm.
That was about halfway along a 50-60 mile flight. I wonder how the weather was when this occurred? Not promptly finding more bodies suggests to me either a delayed SAR response or a pretty violent contact with the water.
Weather up here (67 miles north) it was overcast with light rain. Nothing I wouldn’t fly in.
No word on why the aircraft crashed yet. KING5 just had a graphic showing its maintained speed before suddenly losing altitude. Everything, they said, ‘looked normal’ until the sudden descent. I’d suspect a stall, except for the airspeed. Microburst? We didn’t have any convective activity up north of there. Catastrophic structural failure? Otters are strong airplanes. Human intervention (pilot or passenger(s))? If the engine failed, I’d suspect the speed to decline and the plane could have landed on the water. The NTSB is going to have its work cut out for them.
They showed a picture of the plane, and it was white-and-red; so it was not Kenmore Air.
The accident aircraft.
Looks to be an Otter with a turbine conversion. Maybe a PT-6.
The Otter belonged to Northwest Seaplanes.
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The Coast Guard learned through the seaplane company’s owner that two Friday Harbor seaplanes took off Sunday afternoon and the owner was aboard one of the flights, Giard said. The owner told authorities he saw the other plane divert slightly off course and he tried to make radio contact but was unable to.
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“Shortly after that, he noticed on his flight tracker that the flight had stopped tracking and notified authorities,” Giard said.
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Jon Gabelein of South Whidbey Fire/EMS told KOMO witnesses on the shore reported seeing the plane “nose dive into the water.”
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Whidbey Island resident Jeff Brewny and his wife were walking their dog Sunday when they heard a loud boom.
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“Shortly after that, he noticed on his flight tracker that the flight had stopped tracking and notified authorities,” Giard said.
I’m leaning towards an incapacitated pilot.
Maybe he took a seagull in the face. Maybe he had a heart attack or stroke or was attacked by the crazy bastard sitting behind or beside him.
“They believe the bulk of the plane is on the seafloor, about 150 to 250 feet under the surface, Giard said.”
So how difficult would it be to find the plane and retrieve it? And who will do it? Does the NTSB have the equipment to do so?
They would hire the needed salvage equipment. I would imagine step 1 is a robotic sub to see what is needed.
My recollection is the currents are swift around those islands, wave action is much less than in the open ocean, and the water is cold but relatively clear. As oceanic salvage efforts go, 200-ish feet down is not quite wading depth.
Whatever challenges NTSB faces in this case, getting to the wreckage and bringing it to the surface are not biggies.
From the link already posted above
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The plane, owned by the Renton-based charter service Northwest Seaplanes and operated by Friday Harbor Seaplanes, was traveling from Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands to Renton.
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Northwest Seaplanes is a charter service located in Renton. Its sister company, Friday Harbor Seaplanes, was operating yesterday’s flight, traveling from Friday Harbor to Renton.
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Citing the fatal crash in Canada, last December the FAA issued an airworthiness directive, meant to alert operators to maintenance requirements based on past problems a particular model of aircraft has experienced.
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The directive takes aim at the prospect of wear and tear causing wings to separate from the fuselage of DHC-3 aircraft midflight, just one of several concerns with that model that got the FAA’s attention.
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The mission will now become a recovery effort, and the agency was bringing out a drone and submersible craft to continue looking for victims and debris from the plane. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife also has divers at the scene.
Yeah, I can see how something like that could be a problem. /s
If a float plane is anything like a boat then they take a fair amount of stress when hitting waves. If they don’t have the absorption properties of a landing gear then all that stress is going to transmit to the wings and they will want to flex against the wing root.
I think this happened on September 4 and it is notable that many people followed the flight online until it crashed in the Baltic Sea (private jet). No one is sure what happened but best guess seems a loss of cabin pressure. That happened to the golf player some years ago. I am amazed this can happen at all (presumably there are alarms and the pilots know to put on oxygen masks…I know time is short to do that but certainly doable).
11 minute video.
