8 missing in small plane crash off North Carolina coast

abc ^ | February 14, 2022,

[BenLurkin]

Crews are searching the ocean off North Carolina on Monday after finding a debris field where a small plane carrying eight people went down a day earlier, the Coast Guard said.

Watchstanders received a report of a possible downed aircraft about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) east of Drum Inlet from a Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point air traffic controller Sunday, the Coast Guard said. The air traffic controller reported that the aircraft was behaving erratically on radar, then disappeared from the screen.

The single-engine Pilatus PC-12/47 crashed into the water approximately 18 miles (29 kilometers) northeast of Michael J. Smith Field in Beaufort, North Carolina, about 2 p.m. local time Sunday, according to an email from the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday. A preliminary accident notification on the FAA’s website noted that the aircraft “crashed into water under unknown circumstances.”

FlightAware listed a departure for that plane from Hyde County Airport at 1:35 p.m. Sunday and noted it was last seen near Beaufort at 2:01 p.m

[wita]

Actually, I would like to tell him. He left a bit early.

Just reread the accident report, CG was not an issue. The report doesn’t offer a concrete reason other than a pilot was not in control of the aircraft at a critical phase of flight. It might have helped had he not been over water. In either case regardless of tank switch location engine failure, or any other distraction, someone has to continue to fly the aircraft or a fatal crash could be the result.

[blackdog]

Not really. That bird climbs to assigned altitude and maintains altitude on autopilot. Something caused the control input response parameters to be insufficient to maintain a straight and level flight profile.

But as usual, all very good points here on FR. A wealth of really good level headed minds with a broad level of technical experience.

I've flown a lot of planes in 45 years. Cherokee to Citation II. I've never had an airplane in climb or cruise phases oscillate or behave irratic at a fixed pitch and power setting unless weight and balance was FUBAR.

[old curmudgeon]

My earlier comments were not very helpful.

I quit flying years ago when DME approaches were just being installed and and some of us were using LORAN for direct routing. There were a few aircraft with cockpit glass nav systems but I never saw one.

So after my post, I did homework I should have done before the post.

The pilot was considered to be the very best. Very experienced and had his son with him, who was also a pilot. I don’t know whether he put his son in the left seat or not but we should assume for the time being that he did not...because of the importance of his passengers.

My research brought up some very interesting things about the glass display on that particular aircraft and the nature of the display. Of most interest were two things. First, there have been failures with the display. Second, it displays both water and sky as blue.

A failure of the display would also explain the many heading changes in an area where heading and proper altitude is not only important, it usually is a strict requirement. Never flew that particular area and that would not matter as it would be different today.

Most pilots flying an aircraft that sophisticated would enter the route in the nav system and the aircraft would fly the route with the pilot monitoring the flight.

My guess is that he probably did enter the route and required altitudes in the system and the system failed. The attempt to figure out what was going on and correcting the route would explain the variations in heading. A failed system would result in incorrect headings.

I suspect a failure would also result in pitch changes. If the system did not know where the horizon is, there would be unacceptable pitch changes. In addition almost all high performance aircraft require auto pitch control and control by the auto pilot.

So here we are with the nose pointed at the blue sky on the glass display and it is really pointed at the water...or vice versa.

So it really looks like an instrument failure.

Remember, Occam’s Razor.