Sport Pilot Talk

I hate reading these stories.

Not a lot of detail yet.



http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Br ... 36792.html

Definitely a CT?

The text says "2-seat Cirrus SR22", which is obviously wrong.

And the video says a "4-6 passenger jet".

Do you have additional details?

To answer my own question, this link just posted to POA.

http://m.nydailynews.com/new-york/small ... -1.2424077

Yes, it appears to have been a CTLS.

At least from what I've surmised from the articles, he was flying at night, so I'm assuming he was a PP.

As is always the case this early in an investigation, the details are fairly sketchy. Witness appear to agree the airplane was flying erratically, at about 1000'.

Looks like it was N622BT registered to an owner in NH.

Flightaware shows it departed KPNE for Portsmouth NH.

https://flightaware....e/flight/N622BT

Quite a large stretch of water to fly single engine at night. Recorded track seems normal till Breezy Point then ends heading away from shore. No indication of a chute pull as yet.

Many small airplanes fly this route around the Class B and JFK. Quite a few have tried to , or attempted to, land on the beaches there if they had a problem.

Fog and mist reported in area. Body of a man recovered search called off till daylight due to lowering visibility and high surf.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bre ... -1.2424627


The FAA Database does not show a Airman's Certificate for the pilot, as near as I can figure.

I was curious if he was a Sport Pilot who wasn't supposed to be flying at night. At least according to what found (or didn't find), maybe he shouldn't have been flying at all? How accurate is the FAA Airman's Database?

Nomore767 wrote:Quite a large stretch of water to fly single engine at night. Recorded track seems normal till Breezy Point then ends heading away from shore. No indication of a chute pull as yet.

Here's to guessing what might have happened.

There was an outbound flight from on November 3rd to Philly where the plane flew down to 100' AGL over the water:

Tue 08:05:41 AM 40.5641 -73.7703 256° West 104 120 100 -98 Descending FlightAware ADS-B (KJFK)
Tue 08:06:41 AM 40.5567 -73.8093 257° West 105 121 100 Level FlightAware ADS-B (KJFK)
Tue 08:06:56 AM 40.5554 -73.8159 256° West 105 121 100 Level FlightAware ADS-B (KJFK)

On the fatal outbound flight the following day with a route that looks exactly the same (but in reverse), the pilot appeared to be descending perhaps to end up 100' AGL again:

Wed 07:32:08 PM 40.5306 -73.9582 63° Northeast 118 136 900 -500 Descending FlightAware ADS-B (KLGA)
Wed 07:32:29 PM 40.5348 -73.9434 71° East 118 136 700 -91 Descending FlightAware ADS-B (KJRB)
Wed 07:33:14 PM 40.5500 -73.9167 71° East 115 132 800 -300 Climbing New York TRACON
Wed 07:34:09 PM 40.5333 -73.8833 123° Southeast 113 130 200 -655 Descending New York TRACON

These coordinates are pretty much the same in both direction.

I would guess he wanted to fly low over this particular stretch for reasons that we may never know. I would also speculate that he became disoriented on the descent which could explain the course changes as he may have banked to align with a false horizon.

I've flown at night over large bodies of water and it is pretty easy to convince yourself of a false horizon so you need to treat the flights like these more like IFR than VFR. IMHO.

http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviat ... 0605&key=1

It comes back to the training against vertigo over water. As Gulf Air and Tatarstan crashes show, an ATP with thousands of hours can easily drive an airliner nose down into surface.

zaitcev wrote:http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviat ... 0605&key=1

It comes back to the training against vertigo over water. As Gulf Air and Tatarstan crashes show, an ATP with thousands of hours can easily drive an airliner nose down into surface.

It's more than a little suspicious, that the pilot descended so low over the water, in essentially the same location, going both directions.

I haven't heard anything about the Pilot's License status ... has anyone heard anything?