Five members of Georgia family killed (Piper PA-46 crash)

Daleandee

Daleandee

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Dale Andee
This is incredibly sad ...

The wreckage of the plane and the remains of the five people on board were found Sunday night in the town of Masonville, the New York State Police said in a news release.
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https://apnews.com/article/plane-crash-upstate-new-york-668c2baef3f0a6d033d5ff5ffca003a4

Accident Piper PA-46-310P Malibu N85PG, Sunday 30 June 2024

A Piper PA-46-310P Malibu, N85PG, was destroyed during an inflight breakup near Masonville, New York. Unconfirmed reports suggest five people were on board, and some debris was found. Al...
asn.flightsafety.org
 
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sourdough44 said:
Looks like an inflight breakup, convective activity in the area.
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I just added a link to the ASN report that claims that was the cause. Information provided there seems to verify this ...
 
Crossed paths with a storm.

The first pic is an overlay of the aircraft’s path from northeast to southwest (disregard the straight line on the southwest end - that’s erroneous data).

IMG_3286.jpeg

The second pic is the sectional chart and weather at 1800z (a few minutes after the crash, but remember ground-based radar data lag a bit). The red box is the detail area of the first pic, red line is the storm vector, and the magenta is a (my) crudely-drawn flight path. Give or take a few pixels. I can make a better overlay later.

IMG_3288.jpeg
 
Horrible.
There were big masses of dangerous storms going all across the mid-Atlantic yesterday afternoon and evening, with unpredictable pop-ups. Not a great time for small aircraft in much of the area.
 
Baked Potato said:
Horrible.
There were big masses of dangerous storms going all across the mid-Atlantic yesterday afternoon and evening, with unpredictable pop-ups. Not a great time for small aircraft in much of the area.
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True, but this particular cell formed just east of Dunkirk, over 170nm away, 5 hours prior.
 
Wonder if they had onboard weather. Looks like that would have been easy to deviate around.
 
FORANE said:
Wonder if they had onboard weather. Looks like that would have been easy to deviate around.
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No pictures of the aircraft indicate it had onboard weather radar. Could it have had network radar data? Possibly, but again, not easy to shoot the gap using that due to the lag.

That was the last large cell that moved through, though there was a smaller pop-up nearby a couple hours later. Either way, delaying departure an hour (maybe even less) would have avoided the merging of the aircraft and storm.
 
Data link weather is the best thing since sliced bread for VFR weather planning.

About the worst thing ever for IFR planning (wrt thunderstorm activity). For that you need onboard wx radar. And then I don’t trust it unless I can eyeball calibrate it before going IMC.

Awful…
 
I flew yesterday with a very high CAPE and LI and the typical Gulf Coast pop up storms were happening all around me. The ADSB Wx was not exactly jiving with the MK II eyeballs. I was IFR but asking for deviations to maintain VMC (which I could easily do...I just filed IFR for the practice). Houston Center was most accommodating. On the return I just flew with flight following so I wouldn't clog the frequency asking for deviations to avoid flying through buildups. If I was in IMC with that mess you would be reading about me on ASN today. It was a really good lesson on the lag time with on board NexRad and the foolishness of using it for tactical weather avoidance in IMC in the air. It is best used for long range planning to keep clear of areas of activity. I'm not saying that this is what led to the loss of this flight but suspicions are high. After losing an acquaintance and his two children a few weeks back in similar circumstances I am still a little raw on the subject.
 
After flying with xm and ads-b wx for many years, I have to disagree with the popular low regard for its utility avoiding this stuff. Isn't the wx pic in post #5 "network radar data"?
Knowing there is some lag between actual and whats painted on the box, can one not choose to fly behind the trailing edge as opposed to in front of the front? That's what I do; it works for me.
Looks like a deviation right of course would have moved away from the front and around that wx.
 
This makes me angry. My 414 has onboard Garmin weather radar, ADSB-In NEXRAD, Sirius/XM NEXRAD and a storm scope (and I know how to use them all.), but with convective TS I still stay visual… IFR or not. ATC will work with you. If you must fly into a TS, do it solo. Don’t take innocent kids with you.
 
FORANE said:
After flying with xm and ads-b wx for many years, I have to disagree with the popular low regard for its utility avoiding this stuff. Isn't the wx pic in post #5 "network radar data"?
Knowing there is some lag between actual and whats painted on the box, can one not choose to fly behind the trailing edge as opposed to in front of the front? That's what I do; it works for me.
Looks like a deviation right of course would have moved away from the front and around that wx.
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Sorry but to me this checks three of the five FAA dangerous attitude boxes- impulsivity, invulnerability and macho. In unstable air like this area had another cell could pop up from nothing to really bad “behind the trailing edge” within the latency time of nexrad. There have been too many smoking holes to think otherwise. Yes it can be used strategically to fly well away from the problem area but not to fly right just behind what you think is the trailing edge. Stay visual or get/stay on the ground. Don’t use nexrad to tactically maneuver through TS in IMC.
 
I have two rules. No flying in what could be possbile ice if the clouds are more than 1000 feet thick, and no flying IMC with possibility of embedded TS. No destination or timeline is that important.
 
FORANE said:
After flying with xm and ads-b wx for many years, I have to disagree with the popular low regard for its utility avoiding this stuff. Isn't the wx pic in post #5 "network radar data"?
Knowing there is some lag between actual and whats painted on the box, can one not choose to fly behind the trailing edge as opposed to in front of the front? That's what I do; it works for me.
Looks like a deviation right of course would have moved away from the front and around that wx.
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You are disregarding what the lag actually means, especially if IMC and can't see what's happening. I've seen massive buildups pop up in just a few minutes without a trace on the radar yet.

Yes the pic in #5 is NEXRAD data, but probably isn't what was available in the cockpit on XM or ADSB at the time of the breakup. That data can be 20 minutes stale, which in a fast moving or growing storm can be the difference of 30-40 miles or no storm to deadly.
 
So it sounds like some would have no IMC flying without a storm scope at minimum.

To suggest that ads-b or xm wx doesn't aid in wx avoidance is simply wrong IMHO. The one time I found myself in a black cloud with extreme precip intermittently illuminated from lightning in that cloud was when requesting vectors from ATC prior to being equipped with xm.

Sorry right back. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating flying into or close to CB's. Just saying in my experience xm and ads-b wx has proven to be a useful aid in wx avoidance.
 
FORANE said:
So it sounds like some would have no IMC flying without a storm scope at minimum.

To suggest that ads-b or xm wx doesn't aid in wx avoidance is simply wrong IMHO. The one time I found myself in a black cloud with extreme precip intermittently illuminated from lightning in that cloud was when requesting vectors from ATC prior to being equipped with xm.

Sorry right back. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating flying into or close to CB's. Just saying in my experience xm and ads-b wx has proven to be a useful aid in wx avoidance.
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Just this weekend I was down and back to Cape Hatteras. The ADS B did NOT show where the cells were accurately. Why? Time delay. The stormscope and my eyeballs were in agreement, however.
 
robin ardoin said:
I flew yesterday with a very high CAPE and LI and the typical Gulf Coast pop up storms were happening all around me. The ADSB Wx was not exactly jiving with the MK II eyeballs. I was IFR but asking for deviations to maintain VMC (which I could easily do...I just filed IFR for the practice). Houston Center was most accommodating. On the return I just flew with flight following so I wouldn't clog the frequency asking for deviations to avoid flying through buildups. If I was in IMC with that mess you would be reading about me on ASN today. It was a really good lesson on the lag time with on board NexRad and the foolishness of using it for tactical weather avoidance in IMC in the air. It is best used for long range planning to keep clear of areas of activity. I'm not saying that this is what led to the loss of this flight but suspicions are high. After losing an acquaintance and his two children a few weeks back in similar circumstances I am still a little raw on the subject.
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You and me both. Flying from 5C1 to KIWS. I was at 7000’ in the Scattered layer, asked for a few vectors due to forming towers.
A few shook me pretty good so I asked for a descent below the cloud layer and a direct to KIWS. Landed right before a giant downpour.
ADSB WX was clear with a few Green dots the entire time.
Don’t trust it
 
08438EC1-CA8B-4626-9E66-0A8CD659A65D.jpeg

There is me, full Dynon everything. 100 hp light sport… another pilot even asked about my amazing piloting daring skills at the next stop…

But

364D0C0A-C61F-4ECF-AAAC-8C0625E85B42.jpeg
This is what it looked like 5 seconds later. In other words, these pics were taken at essentially the EXACT same time.

Yes, it’s useful. As wrong as it is here, it is just as bad if you were IMC. And no, I don’t fly IMC around CONVECTIVE stuff without a radar. All my years of Navy flying, did not go IMC in what was then a “Willy Willy” weather area. Sat and waited it out.
 
FORANE said:
So it sounds like some would have no IMC flying without a storm scope at minimum.

To suggest that ads-b or xm wx doesn't aid in wx avoidance is simply wrong IMHO. The one time I found myself in a black cloud with extreme precip intermittently illuminated from lightning in that cloud was when requesting vectors from ATC prior to being equipped with xm.

Sorry right back. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating flying into or close to CB's. Just saying in my experience xm and ads-b wx has proven to be a useful aid in wx avoidance.
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IMC flying with XM isn't the issue, flying IMC and using XM to avoid convective activity is. This isn't just a bunch of naysayers on the internet, it is written in blood, seemingly several times a year recently. I bet this pilot, like others before him, thought he was smart enough to use it and avoid the weather too.

If you are flying around convective activity, you either need to stay VMC and use your eyeballs, have on board radar, or at a minimum a stormscope and know how to use it. XM/ADSb radar has killed many.
 
midwestpa24 said:
You are disregarding what the lag actually means, especially if IMC and can't see what's happening. I've seen massive buildups pop up in just a few minutes without a trace on the radar yet.

Yes the pic in #5 is NEXRAD data, but probably isn't what was available in the cockpit on XM or ADSB at the time of the breakup. That data can be 20 minutes stale, which in a fast moving or growing storm can be the difference of 30-40 miles or no storm to deadly.
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It is archived NEXRAD, and to be honest, I don’t know if it’s time-normalized after fact, meaning the difference between what was being aggregated and displayed at 18z or the lowest scan volume completed at 18z.

Edit: by the way, that *was* just the lowest scan volume. The composite looks a bit worse.

But agree, you can’t effectively navigate through storm scale features using laggy NEXRAD.
 
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FORANE said:
After flying with xm and ads-b wx for many years, I have to disagree with the popular low regard for its utility avoiding this stuff. Isn't the wx pic in post #5 "network radar data"?
Knowing there is some lag between actual and whats painted on the box, can one not choose to fly behind the trailing edge as opposed to in front of the front? That's what I do; it works for me.
Looks like a deviation right of course would have moved away from the front and around that wx.
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XM and ADS-B to “skirt” convective activity works!



Right up until it doesn’t.


Sorry not piling on but you need to rethink your game plan. I too have seen major build up where XM/ADS-B shows none, and also the inverse where XM/ADS-B show (seemingly) convective activity where none exists. I’ve also seen lag vs storm speed or build up that was downright dangerous.
 
I live right where this happened. Gorgeous day today, yesterday not so much. Windy, massive buildups everywhere. Quite a chance to take with 4 family members on board. They deserved better than this guy gave them.
 
The pop up convectives this time of year come out of nowhere fast and are often only detectable by your eyes. I’ve had many times when ATC was checking radar and said nothing was right where I could see a large clearly dangerous buildup. See and avoid applies to many dangers. Flying in IMC anywhere near convective activity is a risk far beyond any possible reward. Such a sad loss of precious lives. It’d be interesting to know what the pressing matter was that prevented flying a safe distance away or waiting until safety was assured to start the mission. Prayers for all those impacted by this tragedy.
 
That is really bad. Why oh why?
 
midwestpa24 said:
You are disregarding what the lag actually means, especially if IMC and can't see what's happening. I've seen massive buildups pop up in just a few minutes without a trace on the radar yet.

Yes the pic in #5 is NEXRAD data, but probably isn't what was available in the cockpit on XM or ADSB at the time of the breakup. That data can be 20 minutes stale, which in a fast moving or growing storm can be the difference of 30-40 miles or no storm to deadly.
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And remember, radar (inflight or ground) doesn't see convection. All it sees is water.
 
This accident made the front page of this morning's Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper. The families involved need all the compassion we could imagine. OTH this makes general aviation look BAD. Just don't be the next guy to make headlines like this. Fly safely; fly conservatively; use common sense; train often; follow the rules. It's not that hard is it?
 
Another gorgeous day to fly here near the accident site. Another thing worth noting: Oneonta (the departure point) is called “the city of the hills” for a reason. This area is the Catskill Mountains, so there was some nice upward momentum for the air that day. One of my dad’s former instructors augered in here in the 80s with an entire family that had chartered him to fly them home.
 
Many underestimate weather. As we all know, it will kill you, just as it likely did here. I have spoken with others who have become complacent or too reliant on XM weather. I myself have seen a huge delay in what is currently happening to what is on my screen. Unless you can get over it or go way around it, just wait it out.
 
Sometimes the customer demands to be somewhere at a specific time. And if one pilot doesn't want to take the flight, someone else will.

Back in the day I used to fly cancelled checks. The banks were the customer, and they demanded the flights be on schedule no matter what. So off we went through lines of thunderstorms, embedded thunderstorms and once during a hurricane. Not into the eye though. Pilots were a dime a dozen, and believe me that is what they were paying. So any pilot that refused a flight because, ''that one cloud looks scary'' soon learned a new phrase, ''would you like fries with that.??''

So I flew the checks between central Florida and SE Texas day and night through all kinds of weather using eyeballs and a strike finder. Once I got a plane that had a Bendix color radar unit, and I thought I was flying a really advanced plane.!! Real time returns, but only good for about 40 miles out. Still, I'll take a Bendix radar over any electronic computerized gizmo any day for short range weather avoidance. Because it is real time with no delay.

My point.?? I guess it is the learn how to use every piece of equipment on the plane, and get on that radio and ask center/approach/departure for help around weather. These folks are there to help you in any way they are able to.
 
EXACTY right. ALL information is good. Pieces are not. You ABSOLUTELY need some way of VERIFYING. It’s critical.
 
Zeldman said:
My point.?? I guess it is the learn how to use every piece of equipment on the plane, and get on that radio and ask center/approach/departure for help around weather. These folks are there to help you in any way they are able to.
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Learn the the equipment...but know its limitations
 
same thing happened to me on my drive to walmart, I had the weather channel app up on my Polestar 2 and it showed yellow to red on the weather app but I was looking outside and there was no rain. Then on the way back home, it showed green but major downpours.
 
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