F-16's chase small jet over washington, crashes in Virginia

a reply to: datguy

If the cockpit was depressurized, so was the cabin. They have oxygen masks, but if it was a slow depressurization, which it almost certainly was, by the time anyone realized what was happening it was far too late. At that altitude you have less than a minute once the plane loses pressurization. And if you don’t have hypoxia training recognizing the symptoms is difficult at best. They were all unconscious or dead before they crashed.

a reply to: Zaphod58

You don't notice Hypoxia happening. In Aircrew School they put us in a chamber and reduced the pressure and oxygen gradually. We were all given a task. Mine was to write the numbers 1 through 5 in a column repeatedly. When we were finished, what I thought was numbers were a scrawl. You could see where I got progressively worse, yet I noticed nothing wrong.

FYI: Trump/Republican/NRA donor's family was onboard the plane.

Source: gettr.com...

a reply to: JIMC5499

You aren’t, but someone on board might, with a slow decompression and training.

What would the reports of people seeing 'flares' or 'streaks' in the air? I read it yesterday and cannot find the link anymore.

Any ideas?

I mean, this was more of a response than we got with the multiple Chinese balloons.....

a reply to: matafuchs

Alert aircraft released flares ahead of the aircraft to try to get their attention. It’s a common practice for aircraft that aren’t responding. It’s a way of saying “Hey Stupid”.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Gotcha...that makes sense.

A little update

ABC7NY

The plane is not required to have a flight recorder but it is possible that there are other avionics equipment that will have data that they can examine

Along with NTSB, they are beginning evidence collection and body recovery efforts.

Investigators will look at when the pilot became unresponsive and why aircraft flew the path that it did, he said. They will consider several factors that are routinely examined in such probes including the plane, its engines, weather conditions, pilot qualifications and maintenance records

A preliminary report will be released in 10 days and a final report will be released in one to two years

just came across this little update with some new information:
Listen to the first few seconds, apparently they lost contact with the pilot "just 15 minutes into the flight"
but flew for another 90 minutes until someone decided send jets after it.

It is also reported at 1:18 in the video, that it was an hour before the plane crashed that the sonic booms were heard.

a reply to: datguy

There are no alert fighters near Tennessee, and being a weekend, there probably weren't any fighters ready to fly nearby. So they waited until they were closer to an Alert base to launch them. There were no tankers available for the fighters, so they didn't have a lot of range from their launch base, or time with the aircraft once they intercepted it if they were too far from their launch sites. Meanwhile the controllers were doing their best to contact the pilot, and try to get him to respond. They had other aircraft in the area trying to contact him as well as ground controllers.

Being that close to DC, the fighters had time to stay with them. The Atlantic City jets reported they had thirty minutes on station without tanker support after their supersonic dash to catch up. The DC fighters had longer to stay with them, because they were closer to base. The AC jets, if they recovered to Andrews to refuel might have been able to stay on station a little longer.

There's a serious misunderstanding of the restricted airspace around Washington DC online since this happened. The aircraft never entered the restricted airspace over DC. The Special Flight Rules Area encompasses a 33 nautical mile area around DC, and includes the Flight-Restricted Zone, and P-56 airspaces. The FRZ allows commercial aircraft into and out of National to enter it, while P-56/56A are restricted to anything but presidential support aircraft. However, the restricted airspace only goes up to 18,000 feet. When the aircraft crossed above Washington DC, they were well above the SFRA and were never considered a threat to DC. The alert aircraft were not launched because of them entering DC airspace, but because they weren't responding to radio calls.

No really new news to report but someone did create a wiki for the incident so I'm adding it here

2023 Vriginia plane crash

a reply to: datguy

It's generally ten days to two weeks before the preliminary report is released. That's generally just information that we already know, such as flight path, and ADS-B data. The final report won't be released for at least a year, probably two.

Yes, indeed, it is a pity that we can only know a part of the iceberg

a reply to: Zaphod58

Are they mixing up the difference between "Controlled" and "Restricted" Airspace? The "Controlled" airspace around DC dwarfs the "Restricted".

Depending on which definition of "Controlled" airspace you use, there's an area that starts in Boston and goes the whole way down to North Carolina.

a reply to: JIMC5499

I think a lot of people think that restricted means that it's restricted up to space, and no one can fly in it. And they constantly hear about restricted airspace around the President, or around DC, so they think no planes can fly through the area period.

a reply to: allcode

Even if everything is released, you wouldn't believe it anyway.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I'll take "Stuck Engine Bleed Valve for $1,000 Zap".

a reply to: JIMC5499

I'm torn between that, or bad seal.