Plane Crash Reported in Arizona's Superstition Mountains; Area Commercial Flights Accounted For

ABCnews.go.com ^ | 23 nov 2011 | By MICHAEL S. JAMES

[MindBender26]

All too typical CFIT, desert, mountains, night, multiple people on A/C, conversation....

[Jaxmum]

I think I posted too quickly, I was trying to see who owned the airplane, sorry if I seemed rude!

[eyedigress]

LOL! Very Clever. The Peralta story and the Dutchman cross lines that are very close to Veni Vidi Vici! :^)

[Tarantulas]

Searchers have found the body of one child, 5-9 years old. Just reported on Fox 10 TV Phoenix.

[JimSEA]

I was born, raised and worked in Superior. A a youngster, walked through a lot of the Superstitions. Not a good place to crash a plane certainly. What a shame.

[hope]

Unusual for a trained pilot..very unusual.

[eyedigress]

It is bad. It sounds like it was an accident direct from take-off.

[hope]

I don't believe you were rude. I do believe the circumstances were completely unusual.

[hope]

Yes, coming out of Falcon Field, it was only minutes to the crash...Pilot error is comprehensible... But who know...pray

[Jaxmum]

Thank you.

[noinfringers2]

I too have spent many hours in those locations with good memories. Used to go through Apache Junction(story of a lifetime there) on the way up to the Magollian Rim with more lifetime memories. Beautiful landscape.

[mazda77]

Witnesses said the twin-engine plane and a second aircraft were flying around the mountain when the accident unfolded.

“The one little plane kept going straight and the other one turned and came back and disappeared for a minute. All of a sudden, it hit,” Carla Machajewski of Apache Junction at the base of mountains told reporters.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/aircraft-crashes-arizona-superstition-mountains-east-phoenix-killing-article-1.982130#ixzz1eb7gJaTq

[Erasmus]

The Lost Dutchman's Gold

[Erasmus]

Many years ago, I was a Tempean (and a Sun Devil). My buddy and I spent a fair amount of time gallivanting around the East Valley.

Once we were passengers on a four-wheeler expedition on the road up near the top of Four Peaks when we came across these two Gabby Hayes-like prospectors with an old Land Rover, which had slid off the road into a couple of trees. Thank God for the trees!

While one of the geezers worked to get the diesel motor started with a can of ether, our driver Tom ran a cable from the winch on the front of the Bronco and got them pulled back onto the road.

[mazda77]

Sun Devil myself. Manzi Hall was where my gal pals stayed.

[Erasmus]

Ah, the Manzanita Señoritas. ≤}B^)

I was over in Sin City.

This was back when former Sen. Hayden was still coming in to his office in the Library.

[dr_lew]

Here's my estimate of the POV approaching the crash site. The headwall, or "pillar" on the right fronts the ridge that the plane flew behind from the POV of the webcam video, located to the south. Maybe the pilot got confused between these two headwalls and flew up the valley between them, thinking he was flying to the south of the righthand wall. Once he passed into that valley, he had no choice but to try to clear the ridge at the top of the valley. I believe from the photos that he crashed there or just beyond it at the base of the "flat iron".