Former Sen. Ted Stevens & former NASA Administrator O'Keefe in Alaska crash.

We need to put all of Congress on an A380 with 4 hours of fuel, and send them on a flight to Johannesburg.
 
EdFred said:
We need to put all of Congress on an A380 with 4 hours of fuel, and send them on a flight to Johannesburg.
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I'll cash out my 401k to buy the tickets.
 
Re: AK Twin Otter accident

The reports say it was a DHC-3T which would be a Single Otter. T probably means a turbine conversion.

Having said that, a single Otter is a big plane, but 9 people? I didn't know it was that big.
 
Callous comments aside, whatever your politics or theirs, each death diminishes us, especially of prominent individuals in a GA crash.

I hope for the best for the pilot, passengers, and their families.
 
Sorry to hear about this. AvWeb is reporting that 5 of the 9 aboard died, and that Stevens is among the deceased, "O'Keefe's faite is not known."

The AvWeb article also has "interesting" information on who owned the plane, and where it was headed...
 
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TangoWhiskey said:
Sorry to hear about this. AvWeb is reporting that 5 of the 9 aboard died, and that Stevens is among the deceased, "O'Keefe's faite is not known."

The AvWeb article also has "interesting" information on who owned the plane, and where it was headed...
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Corporate-owned, flying from corporate-owned retreat to another, with lobbyists on board. What else is new?

At least it was on floats, I imagine that infrastructure absorbing some of the energy is why anyone survived at all.

Turbine Otter is a bombproof airplane so long as you remember to retract the gear before a water landing and avoid cumulogranite.
 
Re: AK Twin Otter accident

Greg Bockelman said:
The reports say it was a DHC-3T which would be a Single Otter. T probably means a turbine conversion.

Having said that, a single Otter is a big plane, but 9 people? I didn't know it was that big.
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Cavernous inside. I've seen many configurations but typical is eight rear cabins seats with a center aisle, plus two upfront. Also seen three or four-across sling-style seats.
 
:(

Terry Smith decided a fishing trip might bring him some peace after his son-in-law was killed two weeks ago in plane crash outside Anchorage, Alaska. But in a cruel twist, the small plane flown by Smith and carrying eight passengers crashed Monday into the side of a mountain near Dillingham, Alaska. The crash killed Smith and four others, including former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/11/alaska.crash.aviation.family/?hpt=C2
 
Accident's are rarely a single event... Careful analysis of accidents has shown clearly that there is a chain of faulty decisions that lead like footsteps to the final 'accident'... Every one of those steps is where the accident would have been prevented had the decision been different...
I am not going to speculate on Pilot Smith's decision tree, but clearly there was more than one link in his chain... As the PIC he bears the ultimate responsibility...

What I would like to see is more legal responsibility for those who employ the pilots... They are the ones who are making the profit... The pilot gets a few dollars a week for risking his life... They will say it is the pilots call whether to fly or not, but in the real world we all know that if the pilot refuses to take risks, he is quickly unemployed... It is time for what goes around to come around to the employer...

denny-o
 
They now say the 406 ELT malfunctioned.
 
wabower said:
They now say the 406 ELT malfunctioned.
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I was waiting for knees on this one. A plane with a senator being lost is what got us ELTs in the first place (Hale Boggs?)

If they can't use it to push 406 ELTs - and they still might - when have the facts or logic had any bearing on the outcry - we can still expect that this will be used to push ADS-B and maybe, mandatory terrain warnings.

I thought the plane was spotted as quickly as could be expected once the weather cleared.
 
mikea said:
If they can't use it to push 406 ELTs - and they still might - when have the facts or logic had any bearing on the outcry - we can still expect that this will be used to push ADS-B and maybe, mandatory terrain warnings.
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The plane evidently had a terrain warning system and as mentioned a 406 MHz ELT:
JUNEAU, Alaska -- The plane that crashed into an Alaskan mountainside and killed former Sen. Ted Stevens and four others was outfitted with an alert system that warned pilots of dangerous terrain.

But National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman Deborah Hersman said that it's not known if the system was working just before the plane crashed Monday.

The plane was also equipped with an emergency locator transmitter, Hersman said at a news conference in Anchorage Friday. When properly registered, it issues a distress signal to a control center via satellites and provides registration information, such as the owner's name. She added that it was also unclear why that signal didn't activate.
...
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2599164,ted-stevens-plane-crash-081410.article
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So what we need is a new section of the FARs 91S for flights with current or former Senators or similar VIPs.

91S.1 - Crashes are prohibited.
 
Passenger reported weather was too bad to depart in the AM but around 2:00 pilot told him it was 2200 broken and 3 miles, also was equipped with TAWS .


Kent G
 
Wow, this took me by surprise...
The Alaska Regional Flight Surgeon’s decision to issue the pilot an unrestricted first-class airman medical certificate, based largely on a local neurologist’s in-office evaluation and without conferring with any other Federal Aviation Administration physicians or consultants or attempting to address the etiology of the hemorrhage, the likelihood of recurrence, or the extent of any remaining cognitive deficit, was inappropriate.:frown2:
 
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