U.S. Citation X crash in Germany, 5 dead.

JEP said:
Sad indeed. Didn't FSIFlyer just get a gig flying out of HKG?
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Yup, sure did. Not from my company though. Very sad indeed! RIP to the aviators and passengers onboard. I'm very interested to learn what happened.
 
Pick out of the news today:
The cause of a private plane crash in the western German state of Hesse on Friday remains unknown, but authorities have identified the five victims.
One of the victims, the plane's pilot, was a 52-year-old German textile millionaire, who lived in London. The 53-year-old head of retail chain C&A's Austrian operations was also killed, as was a woman, 43, from Mönchengladbach.

The other victims were an American and a 27-year-old woman from Ukraine.

Police are still baffled by the the accident. Bild reported that the pilot had radio contact with a control tower and appeared calm and concentrated.

He was flying the Cessna 750 Citation X, worth about €11 million, in a straight line with no signs of trouble.

The paper speculates that a cloud bank may have suddenly appeared and surprised the pilot.
 
From another site:

My old boss when I flew a sovereign In Germany way back when. I know also his personal assistant was on that plane. I suspect I knew most of the people n the plane. Schulz was the owner captain. The part owner of Colloseum II, Tack shoes, forever 18 (Germany) and factories in china with an office and home in hong kong.
As a pilot Rainer Schulz was arrogant as they come and had no business trying to fly into egelsbach with that plane in those conditions. This is pilot who had had on final approach had lowered gear and flaps early then decided to raise gear because was slowing them down etc. I could list many of his dangerous moves. No matter the plane he felt they could all be flown as a single pilot....... Those of us who previously flown with Schulz had expected he would do something like this, we just hoped he would take no one with him.
I am heartbroken at the loss of people that some here knew and those I knew too. It's the knowledge of Schulz and his tendencies as a pilot that makes me feel guilty that I didn't do something more...
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The Citation X was certainly not built with an owner operator in mind. Not saying this is the cause of the crash. Just surprised to hear of a X that was owner operated. There was a X out of STS that was owner operated but the aircraft was sold a few years ago. Pretty rare set up.
 
BlueMoon said:
They own an 80% stake of that airport.
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Ja, I got that part. Big coincidence. How many people burned in their homes that day, died in horrific car crashes or better yet died in plane crashes in this country? Its bad that this happened but honestly I think their enough going on here in the States that would have been more news worthy. But then again Warren Buffet is a glutton for having his name in the press and I guarantee if it had been another airport we'd never known this had happened.
 
BigWaveDave said:
The Citation X was certainly not built with an owner operator in mind. Not saying this is the cause of the crash. Just surprised to hear of a X that was owner operated. There was a X out of STS that was owner operated but the aircraft was sold a few years ago. Pretty rare set up.
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You would be surprised at how many there are actually. Just at my center, I can count off the top of my head three owner/operator clients using the X. One we all may know is Kenneth Copeland and we can't forget about Harrison Ford in the 680.
 
BigWaveDave said:
The Citation X was certainly not built with an owner operator in mind. Not saying this is the cause of the crash. Just surprised to hear of a X that was owner operated. There was a X out of STS that was owner operated but the aircraft was sold a few years ago. Pretty rare set up.
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The majority of the guys who own X's at SDL are owner ops. It's rare to see anyone other than the boss in the left seat. All of my business associates who own jets fly their own, also. Lear 25, Lear 60, Citations, and Challengers. I remember when the owner of Westcor bought his X new. I had the unique opportunity to be on board when he traveled from SDL to LAS in 26 minutes, and from SDL to SAN in 29 or 31 minutes.
 
IMHO the X is not a good airplane for the owner operator. It's a handful of airplane. Most of these aircraft are operated by Netjets or XO. In terms of the fleet total I would be interested to know the number NOT flown by a professional. I'm still fairly certain the owner operator is a rare set up in a X. Possibly not at certain airports, but in terms of the fleet total.
 
Canassis said:
The majority of the guys who own X's at SDL are owner ops. It's rare to see anyone other than the boss in the left seat. All of my business associates who own jets fly their own, also. Lear 25, Lear 60, Citations, and Challengers. I remember when the owner of Westcor bought his X new. I had the unique opportunity to be on board when he traveled from SDL to LAS in 26 minutes, and from SDL to SAN in 29 or 31 minutes.
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Yeah, well.....we all know about your "business associates". :)
 
Boris Badenov said:
Well, really, given that sort of exigent circumstance, who wouldn't crash?

I've flown with one owner-operator in a jet. There won't be a second.
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Ah the voice of reason speaks!

Good lord I was wondering if I was taking crazy pills for a second there.

Owner operator and worlds fastest civilian jet equals pure terror IMHO.

The whole reason I have a job is to make sure the professional in the left seat is doing OK. It's not always easy and the X has been humbling and fun because for once I'm not the only one making mistakes. Now put some owner operator in the left seat who only goes to training once a year and has other things to preoccupy like, say, how to pay for jet fuel and you would have to pay me at least three times what I make now. No freaking way Jose.

I'm not the smartest guy but how one affords a X and finds the time to fly one safely is totally beyond me. I can understand a Cj1 or maybe just maybe a 680 (straight wing helps a lot) but the complexity of planning for the average X mission and the nasty habits of the aircraft are out of owner operator realm. There just isn't enough time in the day to do both safely.
 
Canassis said:
The majority of the guys who own X's at SDL are owner ops. It's rare to see anyone other than the boss in the left seat. All of my business associates who own jets fly their own, also. Lear 25, Lear 60, Citations, and Challengers. I remember when the owner of Westcor bought his X new. I had the unique opportunity to be on board when he traveled from SDL to LAS in 26 minutes, and from SDL to SAN in 29 or 31 minutes.
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That has to be one of the worst missions for the aircraft. It wouldn't be much faster than any other mid sized jet due to ATC constraints, 250 below 10k and flying a stabilized approach in the X requires a lot of time to slow down.

Plus the X would have used about 3x your normal jet fuel burn as ATC almost always keeps aircraft on those routes way lower than normal.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of the cockpit for that trip. I'd guess it was Aholes and Elbows the entire time.

Who are these guys flying with? Again just guessing but I would bet a super high time X driver with the personality of a saint and the checking account of a money manager.
 
BigWaveDave said:
Plus the X would have used about 3x your normal jet fuel burn as ATC almost always keeps aircraft on those routes way lower than normal.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of the cockpit for that trip. I'd guess it was Aholes and Elbows the entire time.
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We routinely fly IAD-ORF or HEF-ORF in the Lear and Challenger. It's about a 30 minute flight. The Challenger burns 1400 lbs of gas. For comparison, we flight plan 2800-3000 lbs for the first hour, depending on weight. Basically, the fuel burn is right on par with a "normal" flight.

And 25-30 minutes is an eternity if you're a half competent jet crew.
 
BigWaveDave said:
That has to be one of the worst missions for the aircraft. It wouldn't be much faster than any other mid sized jet due to ATC constraints, 250 below 10k and flying a stabilized approach in the X requires a lot of time to slow down.

Plus the X would have used about 3x your normal jet fuel burn as ATC almost always keeps aircraft on those routes way lower than normal.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of the cockpit for that trip. I'd guess it was Aholes and Elbows the entire time.

Who are these guys flying with? Again just guessing but I would bet a super high time X driver with the personality of a saint and the checking account of a money manager.
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This was the "I got a new toy, let's see what she can do" trip. These flights were flown VFR and with enough gas to get out and back with reserves. The X was an upgrade from a Hawker 700 (IIRC?) that he unloaded before the X got home. The plane is generally a Hawaii (Maui) and NYC, East Coast airplane. Not to say he doesn't do short legs with it also.

He was also flying the Hawker, and he said that the Hawker was more difficult to fly than the X. His Chief Pilot is a high time guy with a military background flying fast movers, and a grad of TPS. I guess getting a family guy to relocate from Memphis to Scottsdale is not very tough when the numbers work for everyone involved. ;)
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
We routinely fly IAD-ORF or HEF-ORF in the Lear and Challenger. It's about a 30 minute flight. The Challenger burns 1400 lbs of gas. For comparison, we flight plan 2800-3000 lbs for the first hour, depending on weight. Basically, the fuel burn is right on par with a "normal" flight.

And 25-30 minutes is an eternity if you're a half competent jet crew.
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I couldn't agree more with the half competent remark, we are talking about owner operators. It was my whole point.

I will just shut up, go back to flying the aircraft in question and wait to find out what happened in Germany at my next training event.

Cheers.
 
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