Plane crash in N. Scottsdale.

[pilot602]

Latest update:

[ QUOTE ]
Plane crash victims identified as Utah pair on way to Santa Fe

Emily Bittner
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 28, 2003 12:00 AM

Police on Monday identified the bodies of a Utah couple who died in a plane crash Sunday evening near the top of the McDowell Mountains.

The couple were identified as Duane Shrontz, 57, and his wife, Joanne, 55, of Alta, Utah.

The plane took off from Scottsdale Municipal Airport, about five miles southwest of the crash, where it had refueled after a flight from San Diego, said Scott Reed, a Scottsdale police spokesman. The plane was headed for Santa Fe and had stopped in Scottsdale for about an hour. Firefighters recovered the bodies Monday.

The aircraft "cartwheeled" when it hit, Reed said, strewing debris across a 100-yard stretch of boulders and steep cliffs at roughly the equivalent of Bell Road and 136th Street.

"They bored in there," said Rural/Metro Capt. Tim Cooper, who led the recovery effort. "It demolished the plane. Clearly, they never saw the mountain."

The bodies were recovered from an altitude of about 3,600 feet by a special Rural/Metro rescue team that was dropped off and picked up by helicopter.

The firefighters snapped photographs of the wreckage for federal investigators.

Firefighters found a severely burned pilot's log, a purse, paperwork identifying the plane and a small bag scattered among the wreckage.

Reed said the plane was a Piper PA-60 Aerostar, a twin-engine, six-seat aircraft.

[/ QUOTE ]

They were transients, most likely not familiar with the area who arrived in the dark and departed in the dark. Not a good odds sheet to start with.

There's a reason why CFIT is such a big deal. It happens to a lot of people and a lot of experienced people - let alone transients unfamiliar with the area and who never saw the place during daylight.

 

[ready2fly]

[ QUOTE ]
said Rural/Metro Capt. Tim Cooper, who led the recovery effort. "It demolished the plane. Clearly, they never saw the mountain."

[/ QUOTE ]
Again - speculation by someone not qualified to determine the actual CAUSE of an airplane crash.

I truly believe that police officer's are NOT trained on such investigation techniques.

 

[pilot602]

Everything (even the NTSB's theroies) are speculation at this point. And, unfortunately, without a survivor, an eye witnesses, a FDR and/or CVR even at best the "final" NTSB report will be an educated guess.

 

[derg]

Having almost every local media outlet sitting literally down the street for the past two days, these guys were so hungry for details that if I walked out with my Delta uniform on, I can virtually guarantee that I would have been bruised by so many people shoving microphones in my face.

The worst part about airplane crashes is that we're a culture hooked on the big news event on day one, the in depth burning baby/widow crying/human interest biopic on day two and then the breaking news of what caused the accident on day three.

Airplane crashes take a loooooong time to figure out because it's rarely what you think it is. This, to me, looks like CFIT (controlled flight into terrain), but there's a slew of other causal events that caused the situation.

 

[pilot602]

Media -

I blame "managers" for the type of "sit and wait" reporting so common these days. Perfect examples - JFK, Jr. (how many hours of a live, open camera shot of open, empty ocean do we really need to see) and Elian Gonzales.

Not so long ago most new decisions were made by editors who were nothing more than aged reporters who had worked up through the ranks. Then in the late '70s editors started to get supplemented with managers - guys with no news background but nice, brand new shiny MBAs. Today, if you can even find an "editor," he or she is generally a figurehead role and the manager is doing the day-to-day decisions.

The problem is the manager has the bottom line as his first intrest whereas the editor's bottom line was a good story. Or, in other words, in the good ole days editorial (the content side) and advertising/business had an adversarial role and priority was always given to editorial. Today the line between the two is so blurred (especially with the introduction of managers) that there really isn't any seperation and the two cooperate - which is VERY BAD for GOOD REPORTING.

So, as a manager what makes more economic sense - send a crew out to rove the streets, make contacts (some possible illegal), expose the company to liability (in terms of insurance, lawsuits, etc.) or to send the same crew to a location and have them camp out and wait for the news to unfold - news that everyone else is reporting as well. It doesn't mean that the campout isn't newsworthy but it's easy, foolproof fodder for the 4 hours they have to fill everyday. It's money induced laziness, plain and simple. Then throw in the fact that about 90% of all TV reporters are hacks and who do very little of the actual reporting work and it just really screws the pooch.

And, unfortunately, newspapers are heading down the same path.

 

[Mavmb]

This is just a classic case of not being familiar with the airport and flying around while fatigued. Tired, he stops for a fuel stop and wants to get home. Not really bothering to check the map and going VFR on a moonless night he flies off into the darkness and boom. I hope this serves as a reminder to other pilots that might attempt such a feat. Let's be safe out there guys! There is no need for things like this to happen!

 

[Guest]

There was another crash off the coast of Florida on Sunday. Whale researches took off from St Simons Island, Malcolm Mckinnon Airport, at 8:50 am and never returned. The plane crashed in the Atlantic about 8 miles from Fernandina Beach.
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