According to Reuters, MSNBC, and AlJazeera, a plane went down on a flight from Las Vegas to Monterrey. Anybody hear anything on this?

A challenger 600.

https://bnonews.com/index.php/2019/05/p ... in-mexico/

Flight aware data shows they were showing a 2,000+FPM climb at 40,900. Comparing that to the weather overlayed on the route it would give the impression that was an updraft from flying through the top of a thunderstorm. I don’t believe a challenger would be capable of a normal climb rate of that magnitude at that altitude but a thunderstorm could produce that much lift.

Would hope that is not case. But the track line ends near the weather. If it was a loss of control in a thunderstorm at 40,000’ that would be tragic as it is easily prevented.

The past few days have not been great for aviation.

May they RIP.

Always happens in threes

Looks to be N601VH
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N601VH

Ionosphere wrote:

Always happens in threes

Seems strangely so, but indeed

It’s not a 600; it’s a 601-3A. A pretty old business, I suspect a charter operation. No, no CL-600 series is gonna climb like that above about F250.

GF

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

It’s not a 600; it’s a 601-3A. A pretty old business, I suspect a charter operation. No, no CL-600 series is gonna climb like that above about F250.

GF

Agree, but the sn looked to be a LYC powered Challenger 600, even though the initial data says GE power. Initially a TAG airplane. Wonder if it is a 135 operator out of LAS?

It’s serial 5043, I think the 600s were 10xx.

GF

Looking at the FR24 data is there, it looks like the aircraft pitched up and stalled and it just went down from there.

14 people dead? Wow, this has been a bad year for aviation so far. That would be very scary to get caught in a storm at FL400 and to lose control from that high....if that’s what happened.

Picture of the crashed jet included in this news report:

https://www.foxnews.com/world/mexico-pl ... -las-vegas

Clearly very little or no forward motion....

This story on Yahoo says they were descending to avoid a storm then lost radio contact

https://news.yahoo.com/jet-traveling-no ... 56935.html

itisi wrote:

Clearly very little or no forward motion....

Wow, agreed........pancaked in. Sad..

Appears to have been a Part 91 flight. Couldn’t find the aircraft on any aviation booking platforms. Charters customers these days want aircraft 10 years or newer and free WiFi.

The deceased include a family of 5 (mom, dad, 3 children) and the girlfriend of the oldest son. The father is described as a manager or engineer at Pemex or Typhoon Offshore which could indicate a Mexican oil & gas industry corporate jet.

Last video of aircraft (before takeoff from Mexico?) - there appears to a plane in same livery behind it:
https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/ ... monterrey/

Flying OVER thunderstorms... not smart...

Ionosphere wrote:

Always happens in threes

We are only in Q2. I am afraid the series won't stop at three.

Looks like a deep stall... 132kts at 41000ft is more than unreasonable.

Ionosphere wrote:

Always happens in threes

But over what period of time?

tigerzhong13 wrote:

Looks like a deep stall... 132kts at 41000ft is more than unreasonable.

Stall to a flat spin, maybe?

Odd that the aircraft is on the American register yet the history shows it almost exclusively flying in Mexico and it seemingly was operated exclusively for a Mexican Oil & Gas group.

Is there a likely insurance or tax reason why the aircraft would be on the American register?

Tax reason for a lot of jets (planes) registered in the US and places like IOM, Cayman Is. etc. Also politics and optics.

Wow that wreckage picture is startling. To imagine an airplane all the way up at FL400 or higher to land pancaked with what appears to be little to no forward motion. Almost kind of reminds me how AF447 was said to have pancaked into the ocean.

Hey Canadair pilots, does the 600 series have a deep stall issue? Stick pusher? Hail could be at the top of the TZ. Lots a “could haves” in this accident.

Accidents in 3s.. Well, there is a Barron with 6 aboard in Texas and a westwind in Oklahoma , 737 in Jacksonville, Aeroflot , this 600 series..... all in 30 days....... perhaps not...

Very close, notice the intact tail section. The first recovered piece of AF 447 was the tail.


Gf

trnswrld wrote:

Wow that wreckage picture is startling. To imagine an airplane all the way up at FL400 or higher to land pancaked with what appears to be little to no forward motion. Almost kind of reminds me how AF447 was said to have pancaked into the ocean.

There was a CRJ-200 that crashed in northern Norway a while back, just a speck on the ground as well.

mxaxai wrote:

trnswrld wrote:

Wow that wreckage picture is startling. To imagine an airplane all the way up at FL400 or higher to land pancaked with what appears to be little to no forward motion. Almost kind of reminds me how AF447 was said to have pancaked into the ocean.

There was a CRJ-200 that crashed in northern Norway a while back, just a speck on the ground as well.

Except the CR2 you're talking about in Norway went into the ground at a high rate of speed after a dive, whereas this Challenger looks like it pancaked in.

Wonder if the NTSB will open an investigation for this accident?

State of Occurrence is Mexico, notably prickly to deal with, so they get the investigation.

GF

This month is unfortunately very unfortunate in aviation, currently 3 accidents

BravoOne wrote:

Wonder if the NTSB will open an investigation for this accident?

I wonder too. But I will make an assumption that they would.

Well I ask because the Western Airlines, Mexico City DC10 accident in late 1979 never recieved the benefit of an official NTSB report..as far as I know. There was a pretty good ALPA report, but it was not widely distributed.

This Challenger accident, although a N registered airplane might not qualify as it does not appear to be under operational control of any FAA authority?

This incident eerily reminds me of the incident that happened last year where I lost few of my friends:( the challanger from DXB to IST that crashed in Northern Iran, there was a faulty air speed indicator and they were trying to ascend during cruise altitude and she stalled the plane.

atomicstar wrote:

This month is unfortunately very unfortunate in aviation, currently 3 accidents

BravoOne wrote:

Wonder if the NTSB will open an investigation for this accident?

I wonder too. But I will make an assumption that they would.

There have been many more than 3 accidents. People are obsessed using the number 3. If that means ignoring general aviation accidents and only counting commercial. Or ignoring GA but not a bizjet. It is very anti-intellectual to do this, A.net.

ikolkyo wrote:

Looking at the FR24 data is there, it looks like the aircraft pitched up and stalled and it just went down from there.

From the accident picture it looks like a stall or flat spin all the way down to the ground,

atomicstar wrote:

This month is unfortunately very unfortunate in aviation, currently 3 accidents

BravoOne wrote:

Wonder if the NTSB will open an investigation for this accident?

I wonder too. But I will make an assumption that they would.

No, this is under the purview of the Mexican DGAC. Recall in 2012 a US-registered Lear crashed in Mexico killing singer Jenni Rivera; same authority.

Sounds similar to the Challenger that was lost over Iran a year or so ago?

People who believe accidents happen in threes are the same ones that hear voices and wear tin foil hats. Nonething to base this baseless theory on.

Annex 13 is pretty clear-state of occurrence has the investigation authority.

GF

drdisque wrote:

Odd that the aircraft is on the American register yet the history shows it almost exclusively flying in Mexico and it seemingly was operated exclusively for a Mexican Oil & Gas group.

Is there a likely insurance or tax reason why the aircraft would be on the American register?

There is a maintenance reason apparently, for N aircraft to be based all around the world.

BravoOne wrote:

Well I ask because the Western Airlines, Mexico City DC10 accident in late 1979 never recieved the benefit of an official NTSB report..as far as I know. There was a pretty good ALPA report, but it was not widely distributed.

This Challenger accident, although a N registered airplane might not qualify as it does not appear to be under operational control of any FAA authority?

Since the crash occurred in Mexico, Mexican aviation officials will conduct the investigation and issue an official report. Since a US-registered aircraft was involved, the NTSB will be a party to the investigation and assist as requested, but will not issue an official report. That same thing applied to the Western Airlines crash you noted - the Mexican officials would have led the investigation and issued the report.

Moose135 wrote:

BravoOne wrote:

Well I ask because the Western Airlines, Mexico City DC10 accident in late 1979 never recieved the benefit of an official NTSB report..as far as I know. There was a pretty good ALPA report, but it was not widely distributed.

This Challenger accident, although a N registered airplane might not qualify as it does not appear to be under operational control of any FAA authority?

Since the crash occurred in Mexico, Mexican aviation officials will conduct the investigation and issue an official report. Since a US-registered aircraft was involved, the NTSB will be a party to the investigation and assist as requested, but will not issue an official report. That same thing applied to the Western Airlines crash you noted - the Mexican officials would have led the investigation and issued the report.

Thanks, as suspected.

A lengthy post over on PP says this Capt had a rap sheet a mile long for past criminal drug activity.

DiamondFlyer wrote:

mxaxai wrote:

trnswrld wrote:

Wow that wreckage picture is startling. To imagine an airplane all the way up at FL400 or higher to land pancaked with what appears to be little to no forward motion. Almost kind of reminds me how AF447 was said to have pancaked into the ocean.

There was a CRJ-200 that crashed in northern Norway a while back, just a speck on the ground as well.

Except the CR2 you're talking about in Norway went into the ground at a high rate of speed after a dive, whereas this Challenger looks like it pancaked in.

...and it crashed on Swedish soil, not in Norway. It took off from Oslo, Norway and was headed for Tromsø, Norway, but overflew Swedish territory as that's the closest path. It was also registered in Sweden (SE-DUX) and operated by Swedish West Atlantic for Norwegian Mail. The initial behaviour is similar, with the nose pitching up. In the SE-DUX case, it was due to the CA/PF display showing an incorrect pitch up attitude, which the captain reacted on instinctively, trimming the nose down heavily in error. The FO (with a correct display) tried to override, but due to miscommunication between the two pilots they never recovered and entered a steep dive with massive over speed. One pilot was French and one Spanish, but it wasn't the language barrier that caused the miscommunication:

"After the aircraft reached cruising altitude some conversations of a private nature in English were heard. No language barriers were observed, which indicates that the communication between the pilots was not hampered or deteriorated for reasons of language.
...
The investigation has found deficiencies in the pilots' communication and difficulties in handling the situation."

https://www.havkom.se/assets/reports/RL-2016_11e.pdf

In this case, the actual cause may well have been a totally different one, but even if the cause happened to be the same, the impact was quite different as stated before. SE-DUX impacted almost vertically at 508 kts (FDR). This could possibly be explained by different handling characteristics in the two aircraft types.

/Fredrik

trnswrld wrote:

Wow that wreckage picture is startling. To imagine an airplane all the way up at FL400 or higher to land pancaked with what appears to be little to no forward motion. Almost kind of reminds me how AF447 was said to have pancaked into the ocean.

AF447 had some forward motion when it hit the water. I don’t remember how much but it’s in the BEA-report. Also, the tail fin showed signs that it had been ripped off into the direction of „flight“ due to the momentum created when the aircraft hit the water.

The tail fin of this Challenger fell backwards. That’s very rare for plane crashes.