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PA46 Malibu N264DB missing in the English Channel

Malibuflyer wrote:

What would make a Malibu-Pilot to do this flight w/o pressurization?

I remeber you get better heating for the cabin but I never used that trick and put on more clothes, the Mirage heating system is not that greeat…

www.ing-golze.de
EDAZ

It is also possible the pilot didn’t know how to use the pressurisation system.

Or it did not work. From the absence of FR24 data, the plane was evidently used entirely for low level missions. IIRC, panel pics showed a Mode C txp so could not have done IFR in Eurocontrol airspace anyway. Pressurisation would not have been required, and this aspect was not verified since the wreckage was no salvaged.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

What I didn’t understand was that on Skynews, on the crawl along the bottom of the screen for breaking news it said that the plane was flying too fast. Was this another case of some idiot journalist not reading what was in the report but what (s)he thought was in the report?

France

gallois wrote:

What I didn’t understand was that on Skynews, on the crawl along the bottom of the screen for breaking news it said that the plane was flying too fast.

Maybe they are onto something those journalists, if pilot flown it slow with 0%-30% power he would have been able to maintain some control in night IMC even with zero training?

Last Edited by Ibra at 18 Mar 11:35
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

He was flying too fast (above Vno) for the pull he made.

EGTF, LFTF

Reminds me of many NTSB reports where main cause is written in a pretty crude format “aircraft exceeded critical AoA”…

Last Edited by Ibra at 18 Mar 12:15
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

denopa wrote:

He was flying too fast (above Vno) for the pull he made.

Well, the investigators decided on the balance of probability that he made that pull.

Someone pretty much if not completely unconscious made an 11G pull?

Perhaps he slumped over the control column and then slumped backwards dragging it with him? Perhaps the end of the yoke got caught in his seatbelt? Perhaps he slumped onto the ‘up’ button of the electric pitch trim? Perhaps the passenger leaned into the front and grabbed the yoke? Perhaps anything……… it is massive speculation to say he made that pull, just like I am speculating about other ways it could have come about. They also say it may not have happened at all, and that the 2,300ft reading may have been spurious and as a result of unexpected pressure effects when the airframe broke up. It is not at all unknown for secondary radar to see the odd altitude readout that differs from the true altitude.

Given the complete illegality of the flight I feel there was probably a political desire not to attribute to accident purely to CO poisoning, that is to say that direct cause was in some way connected to the pilot not having the correct licence and by inference the correct skills.

When I apply Occam’s Razor, it tells me that if the passenger was ‘deeply unconscious’ as a result of CO poisoning then so was the pilot.

Last Edited by Graham at 18 Mar 17:00
EGLM & EGTN

I think the pilot was exposed to CO before flight, PPL doing low level VFR hand flying at FL50 at night in single, 2h in bad weather and rough sea?
Note that 2 SAR helicopters and 2 boats could not fly/sail that night in low visibility/icing, according to their mouth: they were not brave for it

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/15/british-pilot-charged-over-emiliano-sala-plane-crash-death

What effect this might have on ‘grey charters’? I had not come across this term before, and did not think it was that prevalent to get its own term.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Interesting. local copy.

This has always gone on, at some low level. Very hard to stop especially if no payment is made in respect of any particular flight.

I think the term comes from AOC holders, who obviously don’t like it

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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