Hi there,
just got a notice that Austrocontrol is asking for any reports of a C172 enroute from Italy to Germany in the area of Sölden, and the last contact has been today shortly before noon. SAR was underway, but the strong gusts and sandstorm slowed the efforts.
Hopefully they somehow made it, but hell what a weather to fly there…
Lukas
I’m in the Swiss alps skiing having arrived yesterday and the winds are some of the strongest I’ve experienced skiing for quite some time. I wouldn’t want to have been flying in the alps in a piston engine plane.
Yep. Reims Rocket in the way from Rome to somewhere in Bavaria. One German on board. Get-there-itis most probably. Not quite the day for a flight across the Alps. Anyway, no wreck has been found yet, it seems.
I was watching the traffic through the Alps and around the Alps a lot yesterday as we cancelled a flight near the Alps due to fear of turbulence and mountain waves and I wanted to see if anyone is flying and if perhaps our decision was too conservative. To have flown into the Alps with the goal of flying through South to North to me is just unbelievable. Other than gliders at 20k at the North edge I didn’t see a single light GA traffic shown on ADSB exchange website flying through while I was watching.
Wreckage found. East of the Ötztal valley, high up in the Stubai Alps, at 2800 meters.
… and pilot found deceased in the wreckage.
RIP. The route from the Timmelsjoch to that area is very high and very rugged.
A German friend often flies his Reims Rocket from Italy to Bavaria so I was happy to hear from him.
boscomantico wrote:
Wreckage found. East of the Ötztal valley, high up in the Stubai Alps, at 2800 meters.
Is that close to any reasonable route through the Alps? Can he have been flying up the wrong valley?
Airborne_Again wrote:
Is that close to any reasonable route through the Alps? Can he have been flying up the wrong valley?
It is close to a standard way to get North via Timmelsjoch to enter AT-GAFOR Route LO49 at Tschirgant.
Is that close to any reasonable route through the Alps? Can he have been flying up the wrong valley?
Well, it is close to a very common route across the Alps if flying from Italy to the western bits of Bavaria. You go via Bolzano and Merano, cross the Timmelsjoch and the down the Ötztal valley to the area west of Innsbruck, where one often proceeds via tge Fernpass to Füssen.
However, the wreckage is not in the valley (otherwise they would have found it much sooner), but quite a bit to the east of that. So it looks like he didn‘t really follow the valley. But it was certainly not a case of following the wrong valley, as there is absolutely no other northbound valley there.
Timmelsjoch here. He crashed somewhere in those snow-capped mountains to the right of that valley.
