One pilot I know paid ~€400 on Rhodes for a fuel stop, Sep 2018. I think most pilots would try to avoid these charges, but what a price to pay?
petakas wrote:
The pilot was seen at LLHA using a ladder before departure to clean a considerable OIL quantity running from top of the engine cowling all the way to the left back of the aircraft. The whole left part of the aircraft was in oil. I saw it with my eyes popped out. Its just criminal negligence as it looks. Maybe after the oil cleaning no proper troubleshooting was done as to the cause.
I have agreed not share the visual evidence due to an investigation in progress off course.There are reports from Local engineer in Samos (not related to aviation) that the aircraft on approach to Samos was “on fire” making “loud bang’s”.
The explosions is what made them look towards the approach seeing visible flames from the aircraft.
This could be oil related or fuel related …
If that’s really true, what must have happened to these souls or what must they have feared in order to depart with an unairworthy aircraft knowing that it might go into the night over sea? This is no mere stupidity, there’s more to it.
Peter wrote:
I think most pilots would try to avoid these charges, but what a price to pay?
That is the problem. Many people are not rational when it comes to these things. They are more afraid of hassle of landing without PPR and high costs and stick their head into the sand trying to get to their destination. Fatal combination.
Anyway, Kos was closer and basically right next to them when they went down. Same thing however.
I’ve been saying all along, this PPR and Outpricing garbage WILL cost lives. We will probably never find out if this one did unless they can rise the wreck.
Kos has no avgas. The logistics of shipping a drum of avgas in Greece would be interesting, though not impossible since a number of people have been doing it.
The only avgas anywhere near there is at Samos or Rhodos – both Fraported and ~300-400€. And near-impossible PPR procedures.
There is Sitia but they are refusing international traffic due to a stupid vaccine certificate job demarcation thing although prob99 almost nobody will know that (I was apparently the first to find that out, on my trip of last 2 weeks). Nothing in notams, too, which is totally irresponsible.
Something very weird was going on. Sounds like trying to get somewhere at literally all costs.
Well, we have to be careful not to jump to conclusions, even with the hairrising withness statement from Haifa.
What we know so far is:
The airplane proceeded from Tel Aviv to Haifa.
In Haifa the PIC was seen cleaning a massive oil stain from the airplane. It is not stated whether they fuelled.
The oil leak can have many reasons. One of them could well be that the oil filler cap was not closed properly at TLV.
Wether this observation has anything to do with the events later remains to be seen. I am hesitant in this, as with a leak like this I would expect a much quicker development of trouble with the airplane rather than only after close to 5 hours airborne time. And also we do not know about whether there was a fire, withness statements are always very doubtful, even when it is trained people watching. The sound of explosions however would suggest that there is more to it than just a mistaken beacon or strobes.
Fire in an airplane is the worst thing that can happen airborne, in a small plane worse than in a big one. The usual saying goes, if you have a fire, either you are on the ground in 15 minutes or the accident is a fact (AA statement after SR111). In a small airplane, this can be a lot worse than even that.
We can only hope that the wreckage can be recovered and a proper investigation carried out.
https://www.iefimerida.gr/ellada/samos-martyras-diki-netaniahoy-syzygos-thymata-tsesna. Is this enough relevant that he was basic witness concerning gov corruption scandal?
Something very weird was going on. Sounds like trying to get somewhere at literally all costs as @Peter says.I was also listening the RT of LGSM with SAR and was not obvious how many were traveling.Wasnt there any FPL to say so?
MedFlyer wrote:
Is this enough relevant that he was basic witness concerning gov corruption scandal?
Well this makes it more perplexed or maybe not, a coincidence, who knows.
Here’s the Google translation of the article
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=el&tl=en&u=https://www.iefimerida.gr/ellada/samos-martyras-diki-netaniahoy-syzygos-thymata-tsesna
So the final destination was Skopje, not Samos. Which was a fuel stop.
And a high profile pilot. May possibly assure that this accident will be investigated with no cost spared. Given that the plane lies on the bottom of the sea, that may be a major factor in deciding just how far that investigation will go.
A little more here : https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sjdggxrzt
Another resembling case with obscure outcome here: http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2014/10/cyprus-says-turkish-warships-not.html
“Bodies recovered with the aid of divers”, so the wreck is accessible and recoverable.
