Mystery as private plane crashes into Baltic Sea

The title is from the BBC article.

Nato jets were scrambled to follow the plane on its erratic flight which began in southern Spain.

Officials say the plane - believed to have had four people on board - had been due to land in Cologne, Germany, but instead headed out into the Baltic.

Nato pilots and Swedish officials tracking the plane could see no-one in the cockpit.

"The aircraft was flying from Spain to Cologne, but during the flight the aircraft changed its flight route," the Latvian Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement.
...

The aircraft crashed "when it ran out of fuel," Sweden's search and rescue operation leader Lars Antonsson later told AFP, adding that "no human remains have been found".

Mr Antonsson said that rescuers "have no explanation at all, we can only speculate" about what happened "but they [the people on board] were clearly incapacitated on board".

source

What happened? Where did the people go?
I thought this might be interesting, so I'm kind of hoping and waiting if there's going to be more information on it, like was there communication with the pilot?
Cessnas don't fly that high, do they? So if it was a cabine pressure problem would that be enough to explain this? Why not just do an emergency landing?

Looking forward to read your thoughts.

originally posted by: Peeple
The title is from the BBC article.

Nato jets were scrambled to follow the plane on its erratic flight which began in southern Spain.

Officials say the plane - believed to have had four people on board - had been due to land in Cologne, Germany, but instead headed out into the Baltic.

Nato pilots and Swedish officials tracking the plane could see no-one in the cockpit.

"The aircraft was flying from Spain to Cologne, but during the flight the aircraft changed its flight route," the Latvian Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement.
...

The aircraft crashed "when it ran out of fuel," Sweden's search and rescue operation leader Lars Antonsson later told AFP, adding that "no human remains have been found".

Mr Antonsson said that rescuers "have no explanation at all, we can only speculate" about what happened "but they [the people on board] were clearly incapacitated on board".

source

What happened? Where did the people go?
I thought this might be interesting, so I'm kind of hoping and waiting if there's going to be more information on it, like was there communication with the pilot?
Cessnas don't fly that high, do they? So if it was a cabine pressure problem would that be enough to explain this? Why not just do an emergency landing?

Looking forward to read your thoughts.

Hmm didn't see a flight number Id like to do more searching on this. Like if they tracked it where did it originate from?'

Looks like the same thing that happened to the golfer a few years ago Payne Stewart 3rd link

www.flightradar24.com...

www.lbc.co.uk...

www.bunkered.co.uk...

a reply to: putnam6

I don't know. It took of from Jerez de la Frontera at 12:56 GMT, Cessna 551 registered in Austria.
I'll look later if I can find more, but if you'd dig something out: please share.

Sounds like hypoxia.
Cabin pressure prob reported to atc after takeoff.
Altitude info in the article would be cool.

a reply to: Peeple

Looks like the same thing that happened to the golfer a few years ago Payne Stewart 3rd link

www.flightradar24.com...

www.lbc.co.uk...

The outlet reports that shortly after take-off, the plane reported that there was a problem with the pressure in the cabin.

Contact was lost, just outside the Iberian Peninsula.

German and Danish war planes had earlier been sent to inspect the aircraft as it passed through those countries' airspace, but were unable to make contact, Johan Wahlstrom of the Swedish Maritime Administration said.

"They could not see anyone in the cockpit," he said.

A Lithuanian air force helicopter was dispatched to the crash site for search and rescue, a Lithuanian air force spokesperson said.

Latvia said it had sent ships to the scene.

www.bunkered.co.uk...

Hard to tell when they were in control but considering they were supposed to land in Cologne it looks like right after they crossed the German border

a reply to: Peeple

Life insurance?

I, for one, am hoping it's a Cessna version of the Mary Celeste. That would be way more interesting than some poor people thinking they're taking a quick flight then *poof* hypoxia and crashing.

Yeah, that Cessna is a monster private jet.

Can anyone find anything at all to explain the wording "but they [the people on board] were clearly incapacitated on board" ?

It appears at first glance the plane was put into auto-pilot, the passenger(s) may have bailed midflight, to whatever end.

The above quote is strange- it points to either jumping to conclusions at the beginning of an investigation with little information, or actually finding remains.

"no human remains have been found"

If they reported cabin pressure problems shortly after takeoff, they should have stayed at a lower altitude or turned around and landed.
Crashing from 35,000 feet will disintegrate everything when it hit, that’s why no human remains were found.

a reply to: Iconic

The wording of a lot of it is strange. Not "weird" strange, more like "run though an AI translator to get the story out in multiple languages quickly" strange. The way I read it, it sounded like one of the intercept flights got close enough to see there were people on board but were not responding/unconscious/possibly already dead. That's also just my take on it looking at it as an article that was obviously not originally English though.

a reply to: Magnivea

That is one possibility. It's strange, because I'd always assumed that BBC has staff that vets their written materials, even if only for language barrier type shnikey if not making sure they have correct info.

One thing I just came across that begs some questioning is that smuggling into Austria has been mainly from the Baltics, and everything from migrants to coc aine, heroin etc is smuggled. This "baltic line" of smuggling has recently been the target of investigation, so perhaps there are more lines opening up. Maybe from Spain.

Why Austria? The owner of the plane is in Spain, and the plane is registered out of Austria.

Austrian state Carinthia reports massive drug issues

To add to that, there have been recentish (summer, 2021) arrests in people smuggling from Spain, Albania etc involving investigative bodies from Austria amongst others. They were apparently smuggling people into the UK.

Eighteen arrested in Spain in sting against migrant smugglers operating overseas

a reply to: RazorV66

Well that's the true mystery: If the problem was known why didn't they act accordingly?

Another small info dump. You can tell its one of those nights at work.


company-owner of the Jet listed as company "GG Rent"

GG Rent GmbH

Looks like GG Rent is a company for renting "movable assets," so it was a rented aircraft.

Opens up a lot of possibilities, and doesn't necessarily cancel out any smuggling options. It'd behoove someone to smuggle with a rented craft with paid assets flying, instead of using something registered to the actual planners.

No mystery. The events are clearly explained in the local newspapers:

Diario de Jerez

The guy reported a problem with the pressurization system in the cabin minutes after taking off. He was traveling with his wife, two sons, and two dogs.

That's all.

a reply to: Peeple

I've not seen any reports anywhere (moderately trustworthy places at least) talking about a report of loss of pressure. All I've seen is ATC was unable to open comms with the craft.


Sadly, for the potential families involved, and the conspiracy junkies here, this will probably end up in the folder that houses all those weird Malaysian flights, where the investigations either go silent, get silenced, or overall are hidden from public scrutiny.

7 out of 10 says we'll not know about what incapacitated the passengers, if they bailed from the craft, if it was an attempt at creating a fake plane drone (9/11 anyone?) or anything else. I'll check back though.

a reply to: Iconic

Here:

A bordo, sin embargo, viajaban esta familia alemana, el empresario, su mujer y sus dos hijos. La conexión con el avión quedó interrumpida alrededor de las 17:00 horas (15.00 GMT), tras informar que tenían un problema con la presión de la cabina

It says the guy reported a loss of pressure. This source is from just another local newspaper, here is the link:

Diario de Cádiz

a reply to: Direne

Hadn't seen that, possibly due to overlooking non-english sources. Its interesting for sure, because they have way more info than any other sauce I've looked at. Not only do they know who was on the plane which is contradicting most of the other more mainstream (and outdated?) sources stating a pilot, woman, man and one kid, but the name of the involved company is different. They don't say the involved company is who owned the plane in question, but the man in the plane owned a plane-rental company other than the above listed GG Rental

Here it states that in plane was Grieseman, his wife and daughter also daughter´s male friend

Updated: Just now

German entrepreneur Peter Griesemann, 72, flew the private plane that crashed outside Latvia.

68-year-old wife Juliane, daughter Lisa, 26, and a 27-year-old male friend were also on board.

This is confirmed by friends of the family for the German newspaper Express.

Peter Griesemann is described as a “passionate pilot” and himself owned the airline company Quick Air, which specializes in small private flights.

The 72-year-old was also honorary chairman of Cologne carnival Blauen Funken and chairman of the non-profit construction association Sachsenturm.

LINK

a reply to: dollukka

Maybe Quick Air rents plans from GG Rentals and runs the flights?

Sounding more and more like a routine accident. Loss of cabin pressure, drop in oxygen saturation causes loss of responsiveness, autopilot systems kick on due to lack of input from the then horizontal pilot.

We'll see what comes of this I suppose.