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PA46 Malibu N264DB missing in the English Channel

At least some ship radars show low flying aircraft. Might the crash site be on a record, IF radar is recorded and retained for some time?
The bridge guys wouldn’t bother about a non-ship echo disappearing.

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

Also, I think FR24 and others will not record your data if you contact them and tell them you want to opt out of your data being publically available. Quite possibly the owner did that years ago for privacy reasons.

FR24 offers this to some operators but the other sites mostly don’t.

I don’t have time to do this comprehensively but due to plane spotter activities a google on an aircraft reg usually gives you a really good overview of where a plane has been, and N264DB has been…. almost nowhere! I found some pics from Spain, but really very few. This might be telling us any of several things: ir has been a hangar queen, it has been flying mostly in areas with no spotters, it has been flying at night… For sure if it has been flying around the UK, France, Germany there would have been tons of photos giving a pretty good history, as well as where it has been recently and who has been flying it (you can identify the pilot quite often).

Well, not that it would have been my choice,but if you are not climbing, then descending to +2C VMC and waiting 30 mins to shed ice seems a better bet than staying IMC at -5C at 5000ft and continuing to accrete ice.

Definitely!

Just came across this AAIB summary

We will be gathering all the available evidence to conduct a thorough investigation. However, if the aircraft is not found it is likely to limit the scope of the investigation.

No sh*t Sherlock, as they say…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Maoraigh wrote:

At least some ship radars show low flying aircraft. Might the crash site be on a record, IF radar is recorded and retained for some time?
The bridge guys wouldn’t bother about a non-ship echo disappearing.

Radar is archived since the ships went digital and I bet everybody in knowledge of the accident did action to save data on separate storage. Have you ever been on a ships bridge after a distress call woke up everybody? They will definitely all be up and looking.

Peter wrote:

Also, I think FR24 and others will not record your data if you contact them and tell them you want to opt out of your data being publically available. Quite possibly the owner did that years ago for privacy reasons.
FR24 offers this to some operators but the other sites mostly don’t.

FR24 does offer to protect your privacy, but this only means your aircraft will show as a symbol on the map without any further information. I did not check the other sites, but after GDPR they have to offer similar service. Even with flight data protected you should see a aircraft in historical data of the area in question.
Last Edited by at 26 Jan 08:17

The GDPR reference would be interesting to see. No personal data involved.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Ship radars will only scan 10 degres max over horizon and very low range (just for collosion), probably they will have a trace of a low flight but never seen one on fishing boats but transport and rich guys boats do have some, tough most of them tune vhf emergency frequency

Military vessels/bases would have both aircraft & marine radars but good luck getting their data…

Last Edited by Ibra at 26 Jan 08:43
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

I’m just a bit surprised that not shred of this plane has been recovered, particularly taking into account the large amount of commercial ship traffic in the area, not to mention the search crews.

FAA A&P/IA
LFPN

Big sea, small plane. I know someone who ditched a Twin Comanche in the Irish Sea (during daylight). The aircraft was pretty dinged up after touchdown, but it remained in one piece and sank as a whole to the bottom of the sea a few minutes after ditching. If no one had seen it, it too would have been extremely hard to find as no traces of it were left floating. (She had been followed by a helicopter off a gas platform after making a mayday call, and the S&R helicopter got to her before she could even climb aboard her raft).

Also, when 2-ROAM went in near Blackpool (which did break up as it hit the sea out of control), very little was left floating. They only found it so fast because they knew exactly where it had gone in.

If the Malibu stayed in one piece and the occupants weren’t wearing lifejackets/didn’t have rafts, then it’ll all be at the bottom of the sea in minutes.

Last Edited by alioth at 26 Jan 10:08
Andreas IOM

Peter wrote:

We will be gathering all the available evidence to conduct a thorough investigation. However, if the aircraft is not found it is likely to limit the scope of the investigation.

The search for the missing Malibu was suspended referring as newspapers report. I wonder why. Could it be

  • plane too small
  • POB only two
  • no commercial flight
  • no minister or president on board
  • cause of the accident not that important

In other cases, it will take a lot of effort and money over long periods, MH370 as an extreme exampel.
If money cases had been on board with 15m GBP, would the authorities continue the search?

Berlin, Germany

Perhaps because there are likely explanations for the accident. And there’s nothing to be seen. An underwater search would need different assets.
MH370 is a mystery, and many more of the aircraft type are in service.
A twin went into the sea immediately after leaving Oban. No survivors, nothing found.
£15 million in gold is of interest to salvage companies. The body, if recovered would not pay the salvors.

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

Two things makes me wonder :

  • the aircraft was IFR equipped so it had to have a Mode S transponder. I can hardly imagine departing Nantes, even VFR, with no transponder (at least Mode C). Did he hae 2 transponders, one mode S fr legal IFR and one Mode C for scud running ?
  • when I departed VFR from Nantes (summer of 2015), we had to go through a security check. It was a temporary building that checked GA visitors and employees (I think?). THe security agent asked for my license and ID. Maybe customs showed up for their flight, but a digital scan of their passports seem unlikely to me. What should be clear is the GAR they filed to UK police, but that will be kept secret I guess.
LFOU, France
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