Here’s Juan (blancolirio) Browne’s report.
The ADS-B data shows a short (7-minute) flight with some troubling altitude and speed variations, ending with a low & probably steep turn to final and a crash just short of the airfield. Weather was apparently rain and low visibility.
It must have been a serious issue to forgo a stabilized approach. Sad. The video that followed was a young person yelling for help. I couldn’t watch it passed “tell my parents I love them”. Disorientation is a horrible way to go.
Thanks for that cite. If they had some manner of pitot / static failures (or covers left installed), then the ADS-B data other than position, track, and groundspeed will suffer from GIGO. But so will the crew’s instruments, such that maintaining control in low IMC would be very challenging.
I don’t recall whether the surface temps there were above or below freezing, but pitot / static icing is another possibility if it was cold enough at the altitudes they attained. Or of course some major electrical problem that left them on limited backup instruments. perhaps leading to spatial disorientation.
Whole lotta ways it can go bad.
I’m tempted to toss my resume towards an aviation startup (no actual open position) and I have no idea what I’d want out of a role there but I want to know everything they’re going to do.
Curiosity killed the cat, right? Meow 
A lottery dream is to become a helicopter flight instructor.
Though that’s a thing. You could do that. I’m trying to gauge from media reports how much of a thing this company will be, and if it’s a real thing, I want it all. If it’s just bros scamming investment money I want nothing to do with it.
I hit a career milestone this year. I’m really proud of it but also…. what’s next? I’m bored. Where do I grow from here?
I’m pretty sure I’ll never be content in my job. Gimme more, gimme new!
Came across this
For those of you who like to know what they’re clicking on… It’s a mini-documentary on the Dyke Delta homebuilt.
Sorry to say… but this is a low quality post.
Would it kill you to mention why you posted it and/or what is behind the link?
Thankyou [MonkeysBrother]- Orion is driving me buggy followed closely by SDs arcane choices as to when and where media can be posted. 
Yes. He and his plane are a local legend. I’ve often wondered what would happen if Burt Rutan could turn it into a kit plane to shorten assembly time. It looks like a welding nightmare.
@MacDoc’s url with inline preview:
how did you post that?
Follow the recipe at the top of this thread:
Which thread is pinned at the top of the Site Feedback category.
You had the right general idea, but you left a space between the url and your attempt to put a “&1” on the back. Which meant that the &1 wasn’t seen as part of the url.
The recipe there for posting Youtube videos is absolutely perfect. It always works without exception. If followed exactly. Like everything else with computers, there are only two kinds of input: perfect, and utterly wrong.
Aviation Week Annual Photo Contest posting:
Ref this one upthread …
Here’s the relevant NTSB page. With links to vids of the media briefings and a few pix of wreckage and the crash scene. The so-called “B-roll” vid is a ~5 minute collection of vids shot at the site as NTSB techs are picking over the mess. The 2nd media briefing dated 20Dec has some useful nuggets amongst ~16 minutes of yakyak.
It’ll probably be mid Jan before we see the prelim report come out. NTSB - Statesville NC C550 crash 18 Dec 2025 - WPR26MA063.
Big day for Garmin yesterday. They had the first successful use of their autoland system in a retrofitted King Air. That it works is amazing, that it works in an aircraft built decades before the concept was even theorized is what really blows me away.
I’ve only read the first link and not watched the video, so I’m not sure if it was deployed by a passenger hitting the big red button or if it was automatically kicked off by a lack of pilot input. But in either case, it takes over all radio communications, scores all available runways by a number of parameters, and then picks an airport out. It then flies the approach, lands without input, and comes to a stop on the runway. I believe it even shuts the engines down, but I’m not clear on that.
This shows the flight path with altitude and speed of the Cessna Citation 550 crash at Statesville. It creates more questions than answers. It looks like it’s pitching wildly out of control.
Turns out it might be that the pilots inadvertently triggered the emergency autoland, and didn’t know how to turn it off.
Even if true, it’s still VERY impressive. The first time this has been done outside of a deliberate test.
Note that it doesn’t just “autoland” like, say, a 737 (which I think starts at ILS capture). This can start any time, including cruising altitude (as in this case). It will find the most suitable airport and runway, and initiate a descent (circular, in this case) after communicating with ATC.
It relies on GPS, not (say) ILS. It’s made by Garmin, a company whose core capacity is GPS (I still own several of their simple, stand-alone handheld units).
I saw that! Not sure how much weight to put on that claim, because I’ve listened to the ATC recordings and haven’t heard the supposed back-and-forth where the pilot spoke to ATC and elected to continue with the emergency landing.
If true, that’s a pretty embarrassing miss by the pilot. Not the inadvertent activation, the part where they don’t know how to turn off critical parts of their safety package.