Lucky 172 crash near JFK

Wow. Glad they were okay. Wx looked pretty ugly there last night - viz was pretty low.
 
Weather was terrible in JFK all day yesterday. I definitely wouldn’t have been up in a single engine in hard IFR.
 
Weather was terrible in JFK all day yesterday. I definitely wouldn’t have been up in a single engine in hard IFR.

KIAG-KFRG is about 2.5hours in a 172. A quick glance at the METARS around his (theoretical) time of departure indicates that visibility was really, really low at both FRG and JFK.
 
Weather was terrible in JFK all day yesterday. I definitely wouldn’t have been up in a single engine in hard IFR.

Looking at the flightaware track, it looks like they did multiple approaches and holds. Definitely not a night I would have been up flying in a Cessna in the Northeast.
 
KIAG-KFRG is about 2.5hours in a 172. A quick glance at the METARS around his (theoretical) time of departure indicates that visibility was really, really low at both FRG and JFK.
Not only that but weather was also crappy at most airports within 50 miles so they really had no divert options. There were lucky they survived that crash.
 
Not only that but weather was also crappy at most airports within 50 miles so they really had no divert options. There were lucky they survived that crash.

Yeah.

Y'know, one of the more humbling/eye-opening moments I had as an IR student was that the available weather envelope really didn't expand as much as I initially thought it would. I've mentioned this before, but my IR instructor was an NTSB guy who did cockpit voice analysis, and in the age of the GoPro he also did analysis on more than a few GA accidents. Rarely did they have this kind of outcome.

This ain't about me, though. I'm curious about the pilot's decision loop on this one. I'm sure the NTSB is too.
 
47690


All three passengers survive after small plane crashes in Valley Stream, L.I.
 
Not only that but weather was also crappy at most airports within 50 miles so they really had no divert options. There were lucky they survived that crash.

NJ was crappy but a lot better than Long Island and CT. NJ side the ceilings never really got below 900’. I left work just before this happened and no one was having any issues or had had any issues all day getting into any of the NJ airports

Last 2 FRG METARS:

KFRG 150253Z 19009KT 1/4SM FG VV002 13/13 A2960 RMK AO2 SFC VIS 1/2 PRESFR SLP023 T01330133 58031

KFRG 150153Z 20008KT 1/4SM FG VV002 14/14 A2965 RMK AO2 SFC VIS 1/2 PRESFR SLP039 T01390139
 
We shot a CAT II and landed right in front of him. Heard the whole thing happen. He sounded like a Chinese student of some sort. He burned up all of his gas doing multiple approaches into FRG. Couldn't hold the localizer. His second to last approach was all over the place. He ended up way left of course, turned back to the runway, tried to line up for 31R, which is closed, and then went missed, came back and ran out of gas on his last ILS.

I don't think he or the controllers understood the severity of what was going on until it was too late. He didn't declare an emergency, ATC did, and they tried to get him into JFK. Once they realized how grave it was, they did a great job of trying to get him on the ground, but it was a bit windy and 1/8 mi visibility. We heard his last transmission. "Out of gas". We thought he died. It was pretty crazy.
 
Geez.... poor guy. I flew a turn out of jfk yesterday, was about as foggy a day as I can remember. Took off < 800RVR.
 
Supposedly someone looked him up in the database and he holds a 737 ticket
When I was instructing, a 747 pilot came in to rent a 172. You know...I got this attitude. He went up with another instructor for a check out. Well, he came back humbled. But listening to him, and how he wandered around, it seems he was more focused on weather outside of the plane than flying the instruments. But what nobody has mentioned are the two people with him that I am sure were scared out of there minds feeling totally helpless.
 
Last edited:
Geez.... dumb guy.

FIFY


I wouldn’t call someone who makes terrible decision after terrible decision after terrible decision a sympathetically “poor guy”. Like wut??? He’s a poor guy like Jerry’s a poor guy when HE finally augers it in.
 
Back
Top