Bizarre - cnn report
Some extracts from the report
"The airport's control tower is staffed 24 hours a day, the Federal Aviation Administration told CNN. But it was not immediately clear how many controllers were in the tower during the overnight shift.
An FAA spokesman said there was low visibility overnight and fog.
Another FAA spokesman said it was not known whether the plane had been in contact with controllers, or if it had made a distress call."
The video commentary suggests incorrectly that the pilot might have been "flying VFR, so without reference to instruments, and might not have been in contact with the tower".
One assumes that although the tower was staffed 24x7, that the aerodrome was active. One can only assume the controllers were there and awake. As a pilot you wouldn't just sneak in unannounced, turn off your lights and poodle up to a parking position without being in contact with anyone, and expecting not to be seen or heard. Even if for some reason the pilot was not qualified, not authorised to be in the zone or whatever, if there was any kind of issue, then you would be taking to someone, the local tower or D&D - surely.
Maybe the pilot had an engine or electrical failure some distance out and never got a radio call in, but elected to glide to this airport and deal with the communication later. And I guess it depends on the distance from the tower to the landing spot as to whether the controllers could see or hear a crash landing on the tarmac. You would think that there would however be security patrols or early morning runway inspections before the first plane lined up to depart and saw a wreckage.
It certainly does raise many questions....
Weird.... then again, anything the media write about aviation is to be treated with a mountain of salt. Let's see what comes out.
That said, I could imagine a scenario a bit like this:
Pilot on x-country (or even local flight), not intending to get anywhere near Nashville Int'l. Not using flight following (bit silly at night, but hey, that's pilot's discretion). Flies not too far from Nashville, experiences total electric failure. Now needs to get on the ground presto, ideally on a lit rwy. Sees (or knows, or gets direction from handheld GPS) Nashville, decides to go there. No electricity = no radio = no transponder. Gets to the airport, but sadly crashes on landing, fog of course doesn't help matters.
The fire that CNN reference may have been some smouldering, not every fire produces huge and visible flames. Controllers have coffee, chat, play cards, whatever - there's no one out there, as far as they know.......
Hello!
About 20 years ago a colleague of mine experienced a total electrical failure in the middle of the night in a piston twin (during a VFR night cross country flight). He knew the area well and continued to Stuttgart, which is open 24hours, but not for jets, so there are very few movements, and as he saw no other aircraft around him he went ahead and landed. He taxied in, secured the aircraft, walked to the terminal, found a public phone (no mobile phones yet...) and called the tower: "Could you please close my flight plan, I just landed at EDDS". "That cannot be!" they replied "nobody landed here during the last two hours." But maybe they would have noticed the fire in case he crashed on landing...
nobody landed here.....
I seem to recall that the Israelis got a couple of Hercules into Kampala some time ago without anyone noticing........ :)
This could no longer happen in Europe.
Every airport has today it's anti noise watchmen who will immediately start ringing up the noise report lines along the Tweety sound of "I tot I taw an eroplane". Fine and license suspension might well be in the mail before the airplane reaches it's parking stand.
Bad karma?
From http://www.newschannel5.com/story/23816780/ntsb-plane-was-scheduled-to-land-in-ontario:
> The RCMP confirm the pilot involved in the crash was born on July 26, 1968 and court records show a Michael Callan with the same birthdate has a criminal past.
> Sources and documents obtained by CTV News on Thursday show a criminal record in Windsor stretching back to the 1990s.
>
> More recently, the same Michael Callan faced charges in connection with a massive province-wide child pornography bust in early 2012. Callan eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of mischief in the case.
>
> According to documents, jail time was served but Callan was issued three years of probation.
>
> Authorities would not confirm whether the deceased pilot and the man with the criminal record are the same person.
>
> Meanwhile experienced local airmen are questioning how anyone could cross international borders unnoticed.
> Meanwhile experienced local airmen are questioning how anyone could cross international borders unnoticed.
Well, C172s seem to be pretty good in ‘stealth mode’. Remember the German guy (Matthias Rust or something) who flew to Moscow and landed on Red Square? And that at the height of the Cold War…
