I’m not a Torygraph subscriber, so couldn’t read the full article. Also reported in some continental media.
I just heard on the news that it was somewhere in the Alps. The wreckage was laying in the snow and mountains could be seen behind.
Edit: Above the Rutor glacier, in the Aosta Valley near France.
Oh no! The involved airplane is a Jodel D140 (Mousquetaire) of the Aéroclub de Megève, used for mountain-rating instruction.
Links to Aviation-Safety.net:
172driver wrote:
I’m not a Torygraph subscriber, so couldn’t read the full article.
Aviation-Safety.net updated fatalities: 1 in plane (out of 3 occupants) and 6 in helicopter (out of 6 occupants). It seems that unfortunately 7 people died in this accident.
I read reports now that the instructor of the Jodel who survived the crash has been formally arrested by Italian police.
Apparently they were in Italian airspace without contacting Italian ATC.
From the above:
Two people survived the crash: a German skier from the helicopter and the French instructor that was seated in the back of the small aircraft. According to Italian police, the light aircraft failed to request permission to enter Italian airspace and didn’t warn Italian air traffic control. The injured French instructor has been arrested, and will be questioned when possible.
[ my bold ]
IMHO (if the article is correct) the instructor was negligent (to enter a foreign airspace non-radio etc) but that’s an interesting precedent.
Pieter wrote:
Apparently they were in Italian airspace without contacting Italian ATC.
Yeah, right, in class G airspace. But it’s true that you need at least a flight plan to cross the national border.
Would the Jodel been able to contact any ATC unit from the area it was operating in, in the mountains?
Is the border obvious in that area?
The border would be obvious on a GPS
But yes it is likely that the police were looking for somebody to go after; this is normal. But if they manage to stick a charge on an FI sitting in the back seat, that would be a “novel” development in Europe (it has happened in the US, though I don’t recall if the FI was in the back seat).