Yup, so close yet so far away... If I was there, pulling the CAPS to get down there to help anyhow (and making the situation even worse probably ) would have crossed my mind...briefly
What this shows is that you're never alone. Even flying solo over the ocean there is someone there, ready to drop everything and join others to help a stranger. 🙏❤
It is never easy to hear of a fellow aviator losing his or her life loving what they do. God speed to the PIC and prayers to the family. Props to 61JM, well done, as well as ATC.
The fact a random plane will follow, and burn his fuel, to help another pilot. So sad that he was not able to help pilot or get pilot’s attention. At least the family has remains because of him.
This was so tragic. To the crew of 61JM, bless you for helping albeit having to watch such a sad ending. Kudos to all for trying to get to this plane -- great teamwork by ATC, 61JM and Coast Guard.
That was exactly what I was thinking as I was watching this.. You're up flying, having a normal day.. ATC calls and says "Hey go watch this guy die for us." and of course you do it, because you would want someone to do it if it was you. Heavy.
@@BigJayNJ could be anyone, anytime. Even airliners have been diverted to assist or observe when possible. It's not so much watching someone die, it is attempting to provide assistance. Even if the water had helped regain alertness 1JM being there could have been the key to a rescue. I understand your comment and agree that this has to be hard to watch.
watching that blue line fly away was tough. Can't imagine what he was thinking/feeling on that last leg flying on. Rip to the pilot who lost their life.
It is always sad to see a situation unfold where fellow pilots are pretty much unable to assist. It reminds me of the pilots that witnessed Alaska 261 crash off the coast of Los Angeles with the loss of all aboard. Rest in peace to this pilot and condolences to his family. Thank you VAS for your stellar reporting. You remind me of Jack Webb in Dragnet. Just the facts. Nothing understated or overstated.
At this altitude it could not have been hypoxia. Kudos to the controllers and 1JM for doing what was in their power to save this pilot. Unfortunately, in cases like that there's only this much you can do
with there being 4 types of hypoxia it could’ve been a factor. hypoxia unfortunately can set in very quickly even at lower altitudes. Carbon monoxide poisoning could’ve played a major factor resulting in hypemic hypoxia. unfortunately we’ll never know what truly happened. rip
Absolutely hypoxia, perhaps hypercapnia, could have been a factor as this pilot apparently was unresponsive at the yoke for medical reasons. A great medical doesn’t guarantee any pilot - or person at large, for that matter - won’t suffer a catastrophic medical event soon after. Be careful out there!
Hypoxia is actually divided into four types: hypoxic hypoxia, hypemic hypoxia, stagnant hypoxia, and histotoxic hypoxia. Hypemic is CO poisoning and can occur at any altitude.
My condolences. ATC and the N61JM pilot did a great job at assisting in a situation where both couldn't do much but watch. Thanks to the N61JM pilot, the location of the crash site was known, and the body of the Cirrus's pilot could be recovered on May 13th.
very true Eric. I read in the comments (at the report link above) that pilot of 61JM has been in contact with family members. Hopefully it brought some closure and comfort to those affected.
Died doing what he loved. Out like a light. No suffering. Didn't die alone. I'd be happy with all of that. I'd be pissed my plane got wet and wrecked but they'll be smiling up in the clouds forever about it. RIP flyer. Great job by all involved in the sad story, nothing could be done. They were on his side right through it, the family will get real comfort from that.
Flight tracking shows he took off from SC99 and climbed to 4,500 and was heading south, he then turned left to BNL and descended to 2,000. He then continued in a straight line at 2,000 feet until he lost speed and descended into the Atlantic. Flightaware shows that he had a flight plan, so BNL was his destination. He never got as far as approach really, his speed and altitude remained fairly constant until the end. You could say he was on approach from the turn, but after the descent to 2,000 there was no sign he was doing anything to control the aircraft.
I had a similar experience in Vietnam. An OV10 was hit by an SA7 missile which damaged the observers ejection seat and the pilot, a captain Bennett, elected to ditch off the coast. He successfully saved the observers life but he went down with the aircraft. I stayed with him until he hit the water and then got out of the way when the rescue CH53 arrived. Found out 30 years later that Bennett was killed. Later he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Hard to listen to. Not the audio, but the realisation of what might happen. But thanks for posting. All those folk that helped deserve many thanks. They do save lives. Not all the time of course :(
@@AEMoreira81 had a similar issue over the Gulf of Mexico a few yrs ago. A doctor on a dog rescue apparently passes out from hypoxia and flew until out of fuel. Never recovered him.
In the late 70s, I was based at Langley AFB, with F-106 interceptors. We were scrambled to intercept an unresponsive Bonanza. The 106 AB light could be heard for miles. Our guys were directly overhead of him, popping in and out of burner. No joy. The Bonanza augered into the Atlantic.
Hats off to N61JM, thank you for burning fuel to make sure an aviator was safe or at least would return home for their family to deal with the loss. What a chap~ "we have enough fuel, we're gonna stay here" this opened the flood gates. Wow man. Thank you...
Those news articles are interesting, because they suggest that it was the friend at the destination who called the whole thing in, when this video clearly shows it was ATC getting curious (and probably a bit frustrated and worried) about an airplane that suddenly stopped responding. If he "did an approach and went missed", then he was talking to SOMEONE at some point, and his sudden silence will have raised eyebrows. Also the idea that "there was a sea and land search", when 61JM followed the other aircraft off the coast and watched it crash, and marked the spot until the coast guard arrived, should have significantly shrunk the search area. On the one hand, I suspect it was 61JM's wing-wag that disrupted the air around the other aircraft and caused its immediate demise. On the other hand, it sounds like that demise was pretty inevitable, and their input brought it down close to shore, rather than 200 miles out to sea.
I was an aerostat operator in Iraq, so I had working in-depth knowledge of how they worked, what their performance specs were, etc. I watched several news stations cover the event on the east coast back in the early 2010’s when a 71m aerostat broke loose from the tether and was dragging the tether across the ground for miles and miles leaving all kinds of destruction behind it. The amount of bullshit information that every single news network was spewing out constantly as the event was going on was a huge wakeup call for me since I knew 75% of what they were saying was either speculation or straight up lies, and that was about a subject that had absolute answers. So now when I ever see anything from the news, I assume most of it is speculation or pure BS. I imagine all the things that I don’t have working knowledge on, and what crap they’re trying to feed me because they certainly don’t know either.
Upon reviewing flight data, the engine quit just before I pulled alongside him. Before I could have caused any wake turbulence. Even if the aircraft kept running, I have a hard time believing my cirrus could cause the auto pilot on another cirrus to lose over 2000 feet and crash.
@@jm71578 Oh! Hello!! I got the impression from the video that the aircraft was just in trimmed level flight, rather than on Autopilot, at which point any little bit of propwash could cause just enough of a jolt to upset the aircraft equilibrium and cause it to do "something else", be it a spiral, or turn, or something. No, your Cirrus would have no effect on the engine or Autopilot. Since we have you here, was there anything still visible by the time the Coast Guard arrived, or did he sink too fast?
Gotta be careful with ATC requests to intercept / follow another aircraft. ATC does not have the authority to waive FAR’s, only the FAA can. There was an incident a while back where atc asked a southwest aircraft to get close to another nordo aircraft. They did and subsequently got themselves fired for doing so.
I wonder why ATC did not alert the Coast Guard as soon as 61JM reported no response and definitely as soon as the SR22 started losing speed and altitude. It should have been obvious at that point that the plane was going into the water. With a sooner notification the Coast Guard might have been able to get there before the plane sank.
There sure seems like a LOT of medical pilot problems in the last year. I have personally heard 2 pilots declare emergencies for heart problems in the last 6 months. I've been flying for 25 years and have never previously heard such a thing. I wonder what might be behind this or is it just coincidence?
Some say the vaccines, some say exposure to the virus itself messing with the heart and blood. I had one, but after these strings of pilots having medical issues in flight I don't know if it'd be wise for me to get any more until we know the long term effects.
@@jdoe4983 I'm not sure we'll ever know, the required studies will not be funded. They may acknowledge the problem but I don't think they will want to connect the dots, instead, claiming that the virus itself causes the problem. The CDC, NIH, big pharma etc can not be trusted.
That's sad. We recently had a serious plane crash here a few months back in NC between drum inlet and cape lookout out in the ocean where a charter flight with 4 high schoolers returning from a hunting trip went down for some reason and no one ended up surviving.
The water is only about 48 feet in the area according to info in the links provided. With USCG deploying so quick I'm sure they recovered the remains and the aircraft. Unlikely to be much more made public, except possibly the NTSB report in a year but that will contain little detail and while easy to find, a person has to go looking for such records.
After watching so many videos of passengers flying planes after the pilot became a responsive, you get used to a happy ending. How unfortunate and goes to show you if there's not always a good ending
@@grayrabbit2211 Criminal how manufacturers have spent all this time and money building redundancy in these aircraft systems, how we study how to effectively use these systems and their backups in case of emergency - but companies are trying to do single pilot ops. What good is your aircraft if there is nobody left to fly it? Where is my redundancy? You'd think this world is run by clowns, but no, they're actually just that money hungry they'd do anything to save a dollar.
@@jdoe4983 Everything is a financial decision. Americans have repeatedly proven that they don't care about safety, don't care about service, just the bottom-line price. Companies are just responding to what Americans want. What's also criminal is how expensive DOT and the FAA have made aviation. I understand the thought behind the certification process, BUT, we're at the point where certification is making aviation LESS safe because it prohibits bringing newer, safer designs in and instead forces manufacturers to keep flogging 50-80-year-old designs.
We in the aviation community do not expect the public to understand these accidents. Given the commentary below let me clear up a few things many seem to be confused by. 1. there is not a higher number of pilot incapacity accidents (nor is there ANY vaccine role in them) 2. ATC already broke the rules having another aircraft fly close enough to the other aircraft to see inside the cockpit ( minimum of 3 miles separation between aircraft operating within 40 miles of the radar antenna site, and 5 miles between aircraft operating beyond 40 miles from the antenna site). 3. autoland requires an auto-throttle (a capability for jet aircraft). There will never be a piston aircraft so equipped. 4. ATC is not responsible for the safety of any flight and cannot be expected to do anything from a remote location in regard to an aircraft (even if a pilot is unresponsive and alone). The idea that ATC could somehow pull the chute, or take over the flight (like a drone operator) is NOT a direction the FAA wants, nor do pilots want. 5. ATC will not arrange for an emergency response ahead of an actual emergency (many are watching this and getting 2020 hindsight). Until the plane hit the water there was no way to determine that the crash was actually going to occur. Once it did occur ATC responded accordingly and initiated an emergency response.
> 2. ATC already broke the rules having another aircraft fly close enough to the other aircraft to see inside the cockpit ( minimum of 3 miles separation between aircraft operating within 40 miles of the radar antenna site, and 5 miles between aircraft operating beyond 40 miles from the antenna site) This is incorrect. ATC can apply visual separation, which is what they did. It's also an irrelevant point since this was not in controlled airspace.
@@jqxok ATC was using radar, they did not have visual contact with either of these aircraft. Presidential Proclamation No. 5928, Dec. 27, 1988. In accordance with that claim, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) amended its regulations to extend controlled airspace and the applicability of overflight rules to the airspace overlying the waters between three and twelve nautical miles from the U.S. coast.
There is one FAR the pilot did violate. A second pilot/airplane cannot fly in formation (side by side) without prior permission from the pilot of the other airplane.
Various transport modes have a so-called "deadman switch", I wonder if transponders could be equipped with a feature to determine if there's inaction in the cockpit (via switch, motion, tactile...etc) and switch the transponder to an emergency squawk.
I think the only scenario i have seen that would have been helped by a "deadman switch" is Helios 522. Where in all likelyhood a locked cockpit door prevented the altiude descent required, so a deadman switch that unlocked the door in that scenario would be ideal. But the reality i see that as adding ten issues to resolve one
Any button you touch in the cockpit could disregard that switch. However if no action is detected onboard after whatever seconds, I support the idea of triggering emergency code.
Some Garmin-equipped aircraft do have a feature that will show a message if you don't press any button for a certain period of time and I believe will descend the aircraft to a lower altitude if there's no response to the warnings. Garmin also has an emergency autoland feature that a passenger can activate if the pilot becomes incapacitated, it will find the nearest suitable airport, squawk 7700, declare an emergency and navigate to the airport and land the aircraft, including coming to a full stop on the runway. There have been a number of accidents over the past 10-20 years of pilots becoming incapacitated either due to medical or pressurization issues, so I have to imagine Garmin is working on integrating those two features to safely land an aircraft in the case of pilot incapacitation.
likely just a medical emergency of some sort. Likely not much to be done about it, other than literal emergency autolanding systems that detect when the pilot is incapacitated or something.
(IANAP) Does the Cirrus have autopilot (61JM mentions he didnt appear to be in AP)? It seems that N24LA altitude and heading didn't change until N61JM got close. Could TCAS have tripped off autopiot? Not that staying on AP would have saved the pilot, just wondering. RIP.
@@mattym8 May not have been on AP, he'd just gone missed approach before becoming unresponsive, not sure one would engage AP then. Especially if medical issue was reason for go-around. Could be the craft was just so well trimmed-out that with no inputs at all (hands fell off the stick, body slumped back, no contact with legs) it stayed on last profile. Pure speculation on my part, I admit, but its plausible.
We thought it was not on AP because as we got close the plane seemed to try to climb then make a few turns. In reality, the engine quit just as we started to get alongside him. The plane was sacrificing more airspeed to maintain altitude and went through numerous stalls and turns before hitting the water. AP fought to the end. The approach he was about to begin starts at 2200 and he was landing to get fuel. He never made any further control inputs and the plane flew straight and level for quite a bit of time. We concluded he had a medical incident 80 miles or so before we even saw him.
I wonder why ATC seems to have delayed calling out the rescue chopper? He says that it was just heading out after JM had been reporting for a while on the Cirrus being in the water. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference in the end, but I don't understand why they wouldn't call out the chopper when the Cirrus started descending over the ocean.
i would assume they may expect the pilot take control over the plane, callinga chopper without know how many time remain of fuel is useless, maybe have 2hr more of fuel, and the chopper will need to back to the base to refuel, then splahs and the chopper on land because of refuel or going to refuel.... they just hope to the passenger beign able to get out of the plane and be there to be rescued
Wow, that's awful, I hope the pilots friends and family are ok. Would a smaller plane like this have the black boxes? Maybe they hold the answer as to what happened.
@@CapStar362 ah, I'm guessing that's why the search was called off, a kind of "what's the point?" If there's nothing that can be investigated, since I assume with the body being under water for so long, it's unlikely an autopsy would reveal anything.
@@jqxok I'm guessing the ocean isn't too deep where the plane landed, unlike where MH370 is thought to have gone down, but I guess they wouldn't search for the wreckage as people before the crash seemed to indicate it was fine, meaning it was more than likely a medical issue with the pilot that caused the crash. The family may want to retrieve the body so they can say a final goodbye, but I see your point.
@@FannyLerouxTime the water is quite shallow for ocean terms, but somehow USCG was unable to even locate the aircraft even with the positive location provided by the reporting aircraft and confirmation by ATC to Responders.
I don't work in aviation, so maybe I'm stupid and don't know anything... But shouldn't ATC have called for Coast Guard BEFORE the crash ? Pilot has clearly been unresponsive for long minutes and is headed straight towards the Atlantic Ocean, scout plane hasn't been able to communicate with him either, so why not preemptively call Rescue so that they can be nearer to the potential crash site when it inevitably happens ? Worst case scenario, pilot wakes up and goes back on his merry way (or at least as best as he can) and Coast Guard has been called for "nothing". Best case scenario, Rescue can get to the pilot BEFORE the plane completely sinks, killing the pilot if he isn't already dead from impact. Can anybody tell me if my logic is wrong ? RIP to this pilot, my condolences to his friends and family, respect to JM for going out of his way, respect for ATCs everywhere who have to go through those kinds of situations being a tad "helpless".
one thing to consider is they didnt know if the plane would suddenly change direction and not be over water. and by the time it was clear it was going to impact water the coast guard couldnt have shown up fast enough.
Controller had already notified Coast Guard. They asked the other plane to help since he was already nearby. As soon as unresponsive plane was confirmed then Coast Guard took off. Also, if you listen closely the controller along w his supervisor were up on frequency. This means their emergency protocol is already engaged.
