(Mine even has an S-TEC 30 with alt hold and GPSS :-))
Yes, with an autopilot it can fly 500 miles too if the tanks are full … but i think without A/P 20 miles is realistic if it’s trimmed right.
172driver wrote:
Not many bog-standard PA28s with an AP out there.
All PA28s I have chartered this year had an autopilot.
But from what I gathered from the news, the airplane flew in circles before coming down…
Descending circles would be typical for an airplane trimmed ok and without a pilot …
Well the circle isn’t stable and would result in a steep spiral, unless corrected. You can test this in your aircraft the next time you fly, it is quite impressive.
You bet I have tested all that many times :-). The Warrior will stay pretty stable for some time, the Cirrus will enter a steep dive sooner. But I am sure that non-pilots on the ground do not really see the difference between a “circle” and a spiral dive …
Not many ways of coming out of a PA28 unintentionally.
If suicide, then why not stay in the aircraft?
Possibly an attempt to fake a death?
Smacks of Reggie Perrin, John Stonehouse, and that chap in the canoe…..
New Theory!
The pilot woke up from some super secret Stase prison that was abandoned when the wall went down. The newly awoken pilot not knowing that there is today one big happy world without borders, while sneaking past one of the dirt airfields saw the plane and took a chance. Took off from his former East Germany and attempted to cross a non existing border. He used a parachute that he found in the warrior which he put on and jumped out over what he thought was West Germany. He came to an unfortunate end when the parachute he found was not stuffed with a parachute but rather dirty laundry. Thats the European ending Version.
The American ending version. After he jumps and finds dirty laundry coming out of the pack he lands in a lake and survives.
The End 
Stasi prisons in Aachen? Sounds like an amerikan movie, alright…
They found the pilot dead, according to the news outlet “many kilometers” away from where they estimated the aircraft’s trajectory.
So looks like he jumped out of the PA28.
