Four Dead in Private Plane Crash.

[Averageman]

I betting this guy had a heart attack or a stroke while flying the plane.
The other three (all Women) had no idea about how anything worked.
That's a hell of a way to check out.

[Sam]

Reminds me of the Payne Stewart plane crash in the Dakotas. Didn't realize it was 24 years ago, I thought it was much more recent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_S..._Learjet_crash

[Averageman]

Reminds me of the Payne Stewart plane crash in the Dakotas. Didn't realize it was 24 years ago, I thought it was much more recent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_S..._Learjet_crash

Holy Smokes. Thats tragic.

[B Cart]

Sounds like they're thinking it was some type of equipment issue, like maybe loss of pressurization or something, flown by a mom with her 2-year old and their nanny.

I've recovered bodies from multiple crashed aircraft, including 4 people who nosedived into the mountains here in a Cessna 4-seater, and it's not pretty. Sad story for sure.

[mack7.62]

There has been several crashes lately, this one and a couple of TBM's that are likely pressurization failures. If you are going to fly high you better be up on when and how to don the O2 mask. Speculation is that these are not sudden but slow loss until pilot passes out.

[markm]

Sounds like they're thinking it was some type of equipment issue, like maybe loss of pressurization or something, flown by a mom with her 2-year old and their nanny.

I've recovered bodies from multiple crashed aircraft, including 4 people who nosedived into the mountains here in a Cessna 4-seater, and it's not pretty. Sad story for sure.

I call Cessnas "Mountain Slammers". I wouldn't get in one of those American Mediocrity shit boxes EVER!

[Sam]

From one online article about the VA crash, the bold, italic and underlined portion is mine:

"Flight tracking sites showed the plane suffered a rapid spiraling descent, dropping at one point at a rate of more than 30,000 feet (9,144 meters) per minute before crashing in the St. Mary’s Wilderness."

From the wiki archive on the Dakotas Payne Stewart crash:

F-16 pilot description: "The target is descending and he is doing multiple rolls, looks like he's out of control... in a severe descent, request an emergency descent to follow target." The TULSA 13 pilot reported, "It's soon to impact the ground; he is in a descending spiral."

Notice the similarities?

The Payne Stewart Lear jet's altitude was as high as over 46,600 ft. altitude.

Reporters don't know history. Give them a few days, maybe some old timer from the FAA will remember.

That loop they flew from Tennessee to NY then turned back to VA is a long damn way. My rough estimate is at least 1000 miles, maybe longer depending on their route. They didn't say what model of the Cessna Citation it was, their range is anywhere from 1700 miles to 3400 miles, depending on the model. How much fuel did they have loaded? It might have flown on autopilot (while the pilot and maybe everyone onboard were incapacitated) until ran out of fuel then plummeted just like the Lear jet in South Dakota.

[B Cart]

I call Cessnas "Mountain Slammers". I wouldn't get in one of those American Mediocrity shit boxes EVER!

I'm not a pilot or expert on planes, but they do seem to crash alot...

[WillBrink]

I'm not a pilot or expert on planes, but they do seem to crash alot...

Or is that due to the shear numbers/popularity of the brand?

[Gabriel556]

Chiming in as a Montain Slammer pilot thought not type rated in a 560 that this aircraft was. This is a very successful model and has flown for nearly 40 years in various formats. It is a big single pilot rated jet but many operators use two pilots. It’s possible that there was a pressurization issue however that would have multiple warnings and indicators before FL300 where a problem was identified if something was wrong on takeoff and climbing through 12k’. Because of that, pilot incapacitation should still remain high on probable causes. BUT, like carbon monoxide, pressurization failures can be insidious if there is a moderate leak somewhere. A round trip flight like they took would likely put passengers on alert and someone would likely be pushing buttons or something in the cockpit after the expected flight time elapsed if they were conscious. I hope for their sake they did have a pressurization failure and were unconscious. That spiral at the end is akin to running out of fuel and airspeed decay. Sad. This owner just purchased the aircraft and was back home in Florida while his family flew around in it. Heart wrenching for him.