“How is that possible??”
Engine failure when IMC?
I knew Hungarian pilot. We flew together some years ago.
RIP.
How is that possible??
No attitude indicator (or other gyro instruments) perhaps. I understand a Rallye could do a parachute style decent and remain wings level but that might not have occurred to them.
“ Engine failure when IMC?”
Not very likely with engine failure unless they ran out of fuel.
Track is consistent with being hand flown (no AP).
One of the Swedish newspapers mentions a rapid descend as seen from radar. Not sure where they have this information from? If true it could indicate loss of control (most likely from entering IMC). Is there a vertical track and weather map available from the time?
RIP
Rallyes are very stable in the stall. They barely stall at all! You can certainly hold them in a stall and descend under control. But I don’t think that would be useful.
Particularly if you’ve only got 300-500 cloud base and as little as 3km vis below that (as mentioned in the first post).
For those who haven’t flown over water, 3km vis is pretty much IMC. The only direction you’ll see the surface is when looking straight down. Looking forward over the engine cowling will be just grey/white with anything less than 10km vis. So 3km will definitely be IMC for all practical purposes. So you might not recognise when you come out of the bottom of the cloud until it’s too late.
If the aircraft was used for towing (I’ve only early posts in this thread to get that from), then it might not have been equipped with much instrument flight equipment. The pilots might well have been capable of IFR flight, but the aircraft might not have been equipped for it.
Peter wrote:
How is that possible??
It is not unheard of that experienced airline pilots like that get into situations in small airplanes that will eventually overwhelm them. Being used to being able to fly in pretty much any weather can lead to overconfidence. I recall several bad accidents of airline pilots in GA planes even with fully IFR equipped planes (PASE/PARO) which were flown by very experienced airline pilots.
It is always a tragedy when experienced folks like this come to grief in such situations… I’ve known several of those who did in the 40 years I am in aviation and it is always a rude wake up call.
So much more cases like this may well be a good reason to equip even pure VFR planes with at least some basic EFIS such as a G5 or a VFR Aspen set or, if you are flying thus equipped airplanes, get yourself a Dynon D3 or something similar. They are fairly cheap and can safe your life.
