Small plane crashes at big airport; no one notices

[Blackhawk]

I can't say I have ever heard of this happening before!

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/29/us/plane-crash-mystery/index.html

[bosshawk]

Three in the morning: heavy fog.  Nobody in the tower would have seen the aircraft and it apparently didn't contact the tower via radio: equals a crash that nobody knew happened.  Pilot apparently departed VFR: pretty hard to do in heavy fog: a bit hard to see and if he/ahe wasn't instrument rated, a crash looking for a place to happen.

We will never know.

[ColonelJack]

As one of the commenters on the CNN post said ...

"'Small plane crashes at big airport; no one notices'.
Wonderful. But if I try to bring a 12 oz soda into the airport, TSA is ready to handcuff me!"

Wow.

Jack

[a2capt]

The creepy part is how the aircraft got so close into the radar coverage and remained undetected.
Must have been really dense fog for even not the continued glow of fire to be noticed for at least 20-30 minutes before it subsided.

News reports are not saying much about any other aspects either besides that it's from Canada, possibly came across the border on this flight and if the departing point was YQG to BNA, that's 408nm direct which is "perfect day" range of a long range tank equipped 172R like Windsor Flying Club has three of (now two). But still a long haul.

I'll be curious to hear more about this, since it did crash in the US, the NTSB report should be complete, even if the news media tries to bury it. Though with their love of attacking flight training keeps it's trend .. we shouldn't have to worry there.

[bosshawk]

Tony: the media will try to find out whether or not there was a flight plan: as if that mattered.

[a2capt]

This gets weirder:http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2013/10/30/pilot-in-fatal-nashville-plane-crash-was-supposed-to-be-landing-on-pelee-island/

Text from the article linked:

Trevor Wilhelm, The Windsor Star
Oct 30, 2013 - 12:44 PM EDT
Last Updated: Oct 30, 2013 - 11:19 PM EDT

The local pilot who died in a fiery plane crash in Nashville early Tuesday has been identified as 45-year-old Michael Callan of Windsor.

Windsor Flying Club president David Gillies confirmed Callan's identity, as did Callan's sister Jody Quenneville.
"The family has decided to just have no comment, and we are asking the media to just respect our wishes during this time while we're grieving," said Quenneville when contacted by The Windsor Star Wednesday evening.

But earlier in the day, when contacted by Nashville television station Channel 5, Quenneville said "he was an aspiring pilot who loved to fly. We only just learned from authorities that he died. He was the youngest brother of four children. He was not married and had no children of his own."
A man named Michael Callan of the same age has a criminal record dating back to the late 1990s in Windsor, including a number of violent bank robberies.

A Michael Callan was also facing charges in connection with a child porn crackdown by Windsor police last year. During a two-week period in late 2011, police allege he used his own laptop to openly watch pornography at Chapters bookstore in Devonshire Mall, and while riding a Transit Windsor Bus on two occasions.

Callan  was previously sentenced to 12 years in prison after a yearlong crime spree between November 1996 and December 1997. He pulled several heists, including one where he pointed a handgun at the belly of a pregnant teller.

Callan's 1997 arrest came after he ditched a stolen car not far from the Windsor Flying Club, entered the  club carrying a bag, changed his clothes and left. Suspicious club members provided police with his name.
Gillies declined to comment on Callan's past.

"What I did was establish that he was a pretty good pilot," said Gillies. "He has a legitimate pilots' licence and medical, a night rating, quite a few hours behind him and zero infractions while flying an airplane. In 2011 when he came back to us and asked us if he could re-join the club, the board discussed it and said well, who are we to judge? And in he comes. And he was allowed back into the club again."

Windsor RCMP, the lead Canadian agency in the investigation, declined to confirm if the Callan killed in the crash was one and the same, citing the cross-border jurisdictional issues and the fact that American agencies are the lead investigators in the case.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, which is handling the puzzling case, also wants to know why there was a seeming lack of communication between the pilot and the tower at Nashville International Airport.

Members of the Windsor Flying Club, which rented the man the Cessna 172R Skyhawk, were also scratching their heads Wednesday.

"It is very strange," Gillies said. "There is a little bit of a mystery around this thing. I don't know what the hell he was doing in Nashville, to be quite honest with you."

Callan died early Tuesday after crashing the four-seat Cessna in heavy fog at Nashville International Airport. The crash, next to a runway, went undetected for several hours.

Gillies said that when the man renewed his membership with the club, Callan gave no next of kin information and listed a Howard Avenue address that is not current.

NTSB air safety investigator Jay Neylon told a news conference in Nashville that investigators planned to spend Wednesday collecting all "perishable information" from the wreckage, which could include GPS and cellphones.

The only thing investigators know about the pilot's flight is that on the night he died in Nashville, he was scheduled to land hundreds of kilometres away on Pelee Island.

Gillies said the pilot had taken off with similar flight plans in the past.
"That's what he filed a flight plan for, was Pelee Island," said Gillies. "Pelee Island is half an hour from Windsor Airport. He called the flight information centre in London and closed that flight plan about a half hour after he placed the flight plan."

He said pilots often call and close a flight plan when they arrive at their destination.
Neylon said one important step in the investigation will be reaching out to the Pelee Island Airport to determine if the man ever did land there.

The Windsor Flying Club has already done that on its own. Gillies said he's talked to people on Pelee Island, and no one knows if the pilot ever landed there.

"It's not a controlled airport, so there wouldn't be any record," he said. "We've called and spoken to the people we know there, and they said that about 8:30 or nine o'clock, they heard and saw a plane going over. But they can't say it was him."

Gillies added that as far as anyone knows, that plane didn't land.

Neylon said the probe will look at "man, machine and environment." There will be a preliminary report issued in 10 days with the "basic facts." Another report will follow in six to nine months. Neylon said it could take a year to determine the cause.

Investigators are examining the plane, built in 1999, to determine if there were any mechanical malfunctions.

"I know there are no irregularities with the airplane," said Gillies. "It was in great shape when it left here. So they won't find anything there. I think they'll find something in the weather that closed in on this guy."
Neylon said his team is looking at what role the weather, including thick fog, played in the mishap.
"It was extremely dense that night," he said. "We don't know if that was a factor in the accident."
Neylon said investigators are still trying to determine if there was any communication — or distress calls — between the plane and the airport tower. He said he so far hasn't heard of any, but investigators will review air traffic control tapes and radar Thursday.

He said investigators are also trying to figure out why the airport had no idea the plane crashed, despite a "post-impact fire," until another taxiing pilot noticed the debris.

He said the airport did a runway sweep at 2 a.m, which turned up nothing. The plane debris was discovered around 8:45 a.m. Investigators only know the plane crashed somewhere in that seven hour window.
"We have no idea of the exact time," said Neylon.

[Panache]

Strange indeed.  A man with an extensive criminal history landing 444 miles off course at an international airport with no communication with that airport's tower.... it probably wouldn't be too much of a stretch that he was up to something nefarious.

Question for all you pilot types:  Would a Cessna 172 with extended fuel tanks have enough endurance and range to transport two people 470 miles?  I have to wonder if he was alone...

[SarDragon]

From Wikipedia, for a 172R: Range: 696 nmi (801 mi; 1,289 km) with 45 minute reserve, 55% Power, at 12,000 ft.

[JeffDG]

From Wikipedia, for a 172R: Range: 696 nmi (801 mi; 1,289 km) with 45 minute reserve, 55% Power, at 12,000 ft.

Yep, a 172 has plenty of range for this flight.

For those that think "OMG, he flew all the way from Canada in a 172..."

The airport he departed from is closer to Tri-Cities Regional Airport (KTRI) in Tennessee (318 nm) than KTRI is to Memphis (KMEM - 379 nm)
http://skyvector.com/?ll=36.3292878251765,-92.29833984691729&chart=301&zoom=12&plan=A.CY.CYPT:A.K7.KTRI:A.K7.KMEM

[a2capt]

Of course "range" in an airplane is relative to "the perfect conditions" because the airplane hasn't a clue if it's actually progressing over the surface. It could be hovering in a stiff wind for hours and have an effective range of zero.

We know that..

For the real world, I've gotten as much as 574 nm out of a 172N, going from KLBL to KTUS (Liberal KS, to Tuscon, AZ) .. from one air museum to another.

Of course, that flight mean no "screwing around", go directly to waypoint, do not pass go. Pay $200.

[JeffDG]

The 387nm between these points is well within a comfortable range in a C172...even well within the bladder range of the typical pilot, which is often more limiting than fuel capacity.

[SJFedor]

I was working with NFD the morning we got the call for this (hearing 4 engines, 2 trucks, a heavy rescue, 3 chiefs, and 2 med units dispatched to the airport always perks everyone'e ears up), and I can tell you the fog was THICK that morning. Like, no more than 50-100ft ground visibility. And as for seeing the burning wreckage from the tower, the tower sits pretty close to a mile from the aircraft's final impact point, and the tower sits ~150ft AGL. With the reported weather of 1/8mile visibility (RVR 1000), and an undefined ceiling w/ a vertical visibility of 100, it's safe to say they were thick enough in the soup to not be able to see much of anything. Plus, all the light pollution around the airport probably aided in covering it. And even if he was talking to approach and the tower, the weather was way below minimums for him to be able to complete a procedure approach. Of course, him not being instrument rated probably helped, too. As far as radar goes, if his transponder was off (which, since nothing else about this makes sense, it's rather possible), all Nashville approach woulda seen is a primary target without any altitude information. So they wouldn't know if the target is 500ft above the ground or 5000ft above their airspace.

Total speculation, but he coulda been trying to head for John Tune (small. nontowered reliever airport right on the outer boundary of the Nashville Class C) which also has a 2/20 runway configuration, and the ILS freq between 20 at JWN at 20R at BNA is only 1mHz off (110.3/111.3), but since he impacted on 2C, who knows.

It'll be interesting to say the least as to what they find.