Stumbled upon this. A Commander flying from Czech Republic to Croatia ended up on a mountain in Austria, apparently in pretty bad weather. Looks like they were either trying to find a hole or turn back. Didn’t work, four dead.
According to the previous owner, the current owner had PPL VFR.
https://www.planecheck.com/?ent=da&id=57651
planecheck_D_ELPO_57651_pdf
This, I fear, will have negative consequences for european GA. Advertising for passengers using BS like “instrumentation for all weather” etc.. and then flying VFR over the alps :(
https://www.facebook.com/groups/cestovatelkska/posts/4710248329114412/
[ local copy of planecheck added – using this ]
OMG, what an idiot !! Well, as the old saying goes: you cannot legislate for stupidity.
with strong Fön and abundant winds, intermittent snowfall… I am watching the weather in the area being tricky since weeks, to say the least…
Oh my goodness the passengers paid a bill much higher than they expected.
It was a turbo normalised engine variant, but still it might have been overloaded with 4 adults on four cylinders and at least 3 hours of fuel. And probably limited because not carrying oxygen.
The pax paid for the trip, according to the Facebook post (if it is true).
The weather was reportedly challenging with mod to sev icing and 40 cm snowfall over that day (eye witness report from another forum)
And then the accident has all the looks of VFR in IMC with too much ice.
I am totally astounded about such a reckless behaviour if it turns out to have happened like that.
No I don’t think that this requires a stronger regulation. There will always be an idiot who couldn’t care less about existing regulations. This won’t change when changing the rules.
What a complete dick
Pribram is where I spent most of my CZ life, up to 12.
7500 CZK is €310. So he was planning to get €930.
He organized a black charter on facebook? early traces of some disorders … Such a nice plane, probably very nice passengers :(.
This sort of thing has always gone on, at a certain low level. One needs to keep a low profile (which this idiot wasn’t doing) because as soon as some charter AOC holder sees this, they will be on the phone to the CAA instantly. That (AOC licensing fees to the national CAA) is the primary driver behind CAA prosecutions of illegal charters. It gets dressed up in the much more emotionally nice way of “maintaining public safety” but you get the idea…
By coincidence I was at the Příbram airport and saw the aircraft departing.
The northeast end of the runway has been transformed into an high end car driving training facility. I attended a drifting and safe driving course there, and the weather was perfect for it. The night snowing made everything very slippery. Then, in the early afternoon another snowing arrived, and despite our newly gained knowledge the driving back home was not easy. That was the weather he met around the Alps. All went on as forecast, the pilot must have known where he was heading.
As to the economy of the flight – Peter mentioned 930 Eur collected. As per Google the fuel needed for this round trip is about 270l, and that with an estimated price of 2.5Eur per liter is 675 Eur. The hourly cost without fuel is estimated around 50 Eur (without engine reserve), and with three hours there and three hours back is another 300 Eur cost.
It seems the pilot did not intend to earn money on it. It was just a pleasure trip.
It’s basically the same on the road, isn’t it? It’s the taxi drivers who watch out for others offering paid services, me thinks.
And that is also why more regulations won’t change anything here. If there’s a will to break (already existing) laws, then there is a way – on a certain low level. You won’t be able to find it when there’s no one raising the finger. This will always exist. And it is tolerable to that certain degree.
Could it be that he was in facebook on some sort of flight sharing group? The last post reads like written from some group mod.
