Westchester NY: plane missing, possibly down.

FlightmechH3

FlightmechH3

Pre-takeoff checklist
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FlightmechH3
Just heard. SAR is hampered because of the bad weather.
 
Dana said:
https://patch.com/new-york/harrison/plane-goes-missing-after-takeoff-westchester-airport

That's a pretty populated area, not many places to go down without people noticing... unless it went in the lake.
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The Patch article reports that he sent a text to a group chat:

"The paper reports that Chafetz sent a text message to a WhatsApp group, thinking he was writing to his wife. In the message, he wrote that the aircraft had "lost engines."

"The message read: 'I love you and the kids,'" according to the Chronicle report."
 
heartbreaking indeed, being only a mile from the runway.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
That was harrowing to listen to; performance is off, but flight was continued. Not in my repertoire.
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That's what I thought at first, but I think this guy was just confused as to what was going on. Sometimes it takes a few minutes to figure it out. Meanwhile he was flying the airplane. I'm promising myself that anything engine related, especially ifr, that I will declare and land. It's not worth it. The only other thing I think happened with this guy, is he got cleared to the nearby airport, but he was futzing with his avionics to get a heading rather than turning right away. I'm guilty of that too, although not while in an emergency. What I do now is ask for a heading. A significant amount of time went by flying in the wrong direction it appears. I have a great instructor who has instilled in me, first sign of emergency, get the airplane turned to an airport.
 
I don’t know… Granted he had reduced power, but to me it sounded more like a poorly flown ILS. Maybe I missed some communications.
 
Kritchlow said:
I don’t know… Granted he had reduced power, but to me it sounded more like a poorly flown ILS. Maybe I missed some communications.
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He never quite made it to the ILS. He was initially being vectored for that, but sounds like the engine got worse with a loss of oil pressure and power, he declared, and started getting vectors for a modified base to final with 300’ cloud bases.
 
PaulS said:
That's what I thought at first, but I think this guy was just confused as to what was going on. Sometimes it takes a few minutes to figure it out. Meanwhile he was flying the airplane. I'm promising myself that anything engine related, especially ifr, that I will declare and land. It's not worth it. The only other thing I think happened with this guy, is he got cleared to the nearby airport, but he was futzing with his avionics to get a heading rather than turning right away. I'm guilty of that too, although not while in an emergency. What I do now is ask for a heading. A significant amount of time went by flying in the wrong direction it appears. I have a great instructor who has instilled in me, first sign of emergency, get the airplane turned to an airport.
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I would also add, in hindsight of course, that I would have stayed as high as possible for as long as possble. ATC descended him and he complied. altitude would have been his friend in this case. he had some power for a while, until he didn't. if the texting thing is true, time 'might' have been better spent aviating/navigating. I mean, he was a mile from the runway. I'm not second guessing or criticizing, it's sad all around though.
 
Flying Keys said:
He never quite made it to the ILS. He was initially being vectored for that, but sounds like the engine got worse with a loss of oil pressure and power, he declared, and started getting vectors for a modified base to final with 300’ cloud bases.
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While it’s true he was not formally doing an ILS, one would think he had the localizer tuned. Yet the controller was basically trying to make the corrections for him.

Obviously I don’t have all the info, and I’m not trying to belittle the task he was facing.
That said… why on God’s green Earth was he sending a text message?
 
Kritchlow said:
While it’s true he was not formally doing an ILS, one would think he had the localizer tuned. Yet the controller was basically trying to make the corrections for him.

Obviously I don’t have all the info, and I’m not trying to belittle the task he was facing.
That said… why on God’s green Earth was he sending a text message?
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I agree. I think he was initially going to do the ILS but things went really south about the time he was turning for the downwind vector. From where he ended up being vectored to a base, almost direct to the airport, he was well inside any final approach fix. I’m guessing at that point it was less about aligning with the runway than it was stretching a glide to the airport. Not saying that’s right or wrong, but trying to put myself in the pilot’s mindset based on what I could gather from the tapes.
 
Flying Keys said:
I agree. I think he was initially going to do the ILS but things went really south about the time he was turning for the downwind vector. From where he ended up being vectored to a base, almost direct to the airport, he was well inside any final approach fix. I’m guessing at that point it was less about aligning with the runway than it was stretching a glide to the airport. Not saying that’s right or wrong, but trying to put myself in the pilot’s mindset based on what I could gather from the tapes.
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Perhaps I missed it, but I didn’t hear anything about a glide. I know he said he lost a cylinder, and was losing oil pressure. I did not hear anything about complete engine failure.
 
Kritchlow said:
While it’s true he was not formally doing an ILS, one would think he had the localizer tuned. Yet the controller was basically trying to make the corrections for him.

Obviously I don’t have all the info, and I’m not trying to belittle the task he was facing.
That said… why on God’s green Earth was he sending a text message?
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Kritchlow said:
Perhaps I missed it, but I didn’t hear anything about a glide. I know he said he lost a cylinder, and was losing oil pressure. I did not hear anything about complete engine failure.
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There was a quick, muddled transmission where the controller asked him if he still had power, the guy responded, what I could make out was his prop was over speeding. This sounded well short of the FAF, and he was pretty low. He was on a downwind. The controller turned him toward the numbers and the pilot said he couldn't see anything, please keep the vectors coming. I'm doubting he had enough energy left to shoot an approach. What we don't know is if he was giving up altitude to get to the approach altitudes, that would have been a mistake IMO.
 
PaulS said:
There was a quick, muddled transmission where the controller asked him if he still had power, the guy responded, what I could make out was his prop was over speeding. This sounded well short of the FAF, and he was pretty low. He was on a downwind. The controller turned him toward the numbers and the pilot said he couldn't see anything, please keep the vectors coming. I'm doubting he had enough energy left to shoot an approach. What we don't know is if he was giving up altitude to get to the approach altitudes, that would have been a mistake IMO.
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That was pretty much my analysis as well. He says that it’s overrevving at 24:57, then mayday at the 25:11 mark of the tape.

He had plenty of energy by the way of altitude and was in close enough proximity to the airport, but staying under control in hard, low IMC while trying to maneuver for a non-published approach, descending without full power, and trying not to under/overshoot and/or lose control in the meantime is a tough prospect with lots of task saturation, even if everything was working correctly.
 
Point is, he was high enough to glide t
midwestpa24 said:
Engine failure, IMC, at night. Going to need a little more than just training.
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Not confirmed engine failure. I could be wrong, but seemed enough altitude to get to airport. I’m not saying fly a proper slope, but he seemed to have little clue about a localizer.

I have no delusions that it would be an easy task, and i certainly don’t feel the stress of what he was going through. That said, there seemed little effort to turn to the correct heading.

Again, I will re-listen, but at one point the controller just tells him to level wings. That is not a good sign.
 
Kritchlow said:
Point is, he was high enough to glide t

Not confirmed engine failure. I could be wrong, but seemed enough altitude to get to airport. I’m not saying fly a proper slope, but he seemed to have little clue about a localizer.

I have no delusions that it would be an easy task, and i certainly don’t feel the stress of what he was going through. That said, there seemed little effort to turn to the correct heading.

Again, I will re-listen, but at one point the controller just tells him to level wings. That is not a good sign.
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I agree, and it seemed that the controller was trying to get the pilot to follow some sort of published approach, when steering information should have been to the approach end of the active runway. The problem seemed to be exacerbated by the pilot's wandering headings. But again, I wasn't there, and trying to trouble shoot a failing engine in IMC is not something I'd care to be saddled with. I've never been involved with an in-flight engine failure, but I would think that it would be more distracting (from flying the airplane) dealing with a sick/failing engine than one that had grenaded and flat out quit.

Just my opinion.
 
Kritchlow said:
Or proper training.

/competence
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It's extremely pretentious and offensive of you to say that. You didn't know the pilot, and are just making a derogatory assumption.
 
MountainDude said:
It's extremely pretentious and offensive of you to say that. You didn't know the pilot, and are just making a derogatory assumption.
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Correct to a point, but I did state several times that I don’t have all the facts. I think in a review of my posts I’ve been even handed.
 
Kritchlow said:
...at one point the controller just tells him to level wings. That is not a good sign.
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No, it is not a good sign.

I am wondering what the panel was in the plane, glass or vacuum powered steam gauges that were starting to give erroneous readings.
 
Zeldman said:
No, it is not a good sign.

I am wondering what the panel was in the plane, glass or vacuum powered steam gauges that were starting to give erroneous readings.
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Dual G5s, GFC500, 530w, Insight G3.

Over the past 3 years I’ve logged more time in that plane than any other plane I’ve flown.

In fact, I just looked and thats the plane in my profile picture.
 
Terrible tragedy. Sad to hear these stories.
 
I guess what hits me the most is how many times these threads have “I know the plane” and/or “I know the pilot”.

It’s a small small world. Those statements just seem to make it even more so… and sadder by proxy.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Engine failure, IMC, at night. Going to need a little more than just training.
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To me there’s pretty much zero chance he didnt launch into known icing in a non-FIKI airplane. At night. In thunderstorms. Sure this could have happened on a clear day, but it didn’t. There seem to have been very few good decisions made here.

“Put all the odds in your favor.”
- Barry Schiff
 
It's a sad story. The weather around here often sucks in the winter. Past several days have been low ceilings, surface temps within 5-10 degrees of freezing during the day, light sleet or snow on and off. This isn't new and I'm by far not the only one to mention it. I just wonder if people get used to it, like so many other risks, and kinda minimize the potential impact it can have, as people tend to do with risks they're used to.
 
Why not land FRG of LGA?

If you’re 7700 be 7700 and part the F’ seas


If things are going sidewise TELL atc what you need and let them do the work
 
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