On the way from Venice to Leipzig – “Holiday Time” boss Thomas Wagner dies in plane crash.
Unister boss Thomas Wagner was killed. Also three other people died.
The US registered machine of the type Piper 32 was en route from Venice to Leipzig, the media reported, citing to the police. The pilot had reported before the crash at Predmeja east of the country problems because of icing. The machine was raced and burned in the mountainous terrain in the forest.
A spokeswoman for the airport in Leipzig confirmed that a private plane for 14:45 was announced at the Airport. Among the passengers could not confirm the accuracy of the airport, she said.
Apparently they own large German tourist vacation business’s. Icing at this time of year? Appreciate it can happen at any time, but perhaps linked to T storm activity.
According to German media an internet millionaire was one of the victims.
There is barely enough left of the plane to call it a wreck, according to these pics.
0C level around 7,000ft. Loads of icing enroute above that.
Tops around FL300.
One of my Italian friends posted an image on FB of a northern Italian village and valley totally snowed in today – must have been pretty weird wx in that part of Europe.
I saw this on FB
Very strange story. According to German media, the passenger named in one of the posts above allegedly carried a suitcase containing “several million” Euros with him. The authorities were after him for fraud, tax evasion and other stuff, the collapse of his companies seems to have been imminent. He has already spent a few nights in prison during a previous investigation. Pressing on over the alps in this kind of weather looks more like an escape than a pleasure flight. But we will probably never know.
They’d still be alive if they had a chute [fact]
I add [fact] as I’m merely stating a binary outcome, not suggesting or alluding to whether people should only fly with a chute / fly non-FIKI into ice etc.
DMEarc wrote:
They’d still be alive if they had a chute
They’d still be alive if they had flown in the proper aeroplane for the job. Be it one with a chute or one with de-icing fitted. For an internet millionaire that should have been easy to arrange. Ususally these guys don’t fly in anything smaller than a Challenger.
