Stolen Airplane... just crashed after a joy ride

[Beiruty]

No one posted about the airplane that went on joy ride. It was tailed by 2 F-15. crashed at the end. Pilot did not want to land it after many attempts to convince him to line up at nearby runway or put it down on water.
One report https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/201 ... 968281002/

[PBR]

I posted last night on facebook about it and I don't think they would or will admit to shooting it down even if they did. They also keep claiming he had no training and was just lucky flying it. He had some training some where cause no way he just got lucky doing the maneuvers he was doing. Last thing I mentioned was why so long between when it happened to when it broke the news, was something like 3 hours or so. Almost like they were hoping nothing would be known about it or trying to keep it out of news.

[mrvmax]

There are some guys here with aviation experience that could chime in. I know he mentioned himself that he was getting low on fuel.

[OneGun]

There are reports that the man was suicidal and low on fuel and that is why he crashed the aircraft.

[SigM4]

My reaction if they did actually shoot him down (I haven’t seen enough evidence thus far to prove it), “so what”? All the elements were there to justify the shoot down and I have no problem with it. This isn’t like a suicidal person on a bridge that you try to talk down. This is a person in a commercial aircraft that has the ability to do massive damage to infrastructure or individuals if they suddenly decide they want to take out others when they go.

[flechero]

All the elements were there to justify the shoot down and I have no problem with it.

I agree 100%- in fact, I wish they would say they did just to perhaps deter the next guy.

This isn’t like a suicidal person on a bridge that you try to talk down. This is a person in a commercial aircraft that has the ability to do massive damage to infrastructure or individuals if they suddenly decide they want to take out others when they go.

And by his own radio admission, he had absolutely no clue how to land it.... wait for him to go over an unpopulated area and- "Ghostrider, you are clear to engage!"

[G.A. Heath]

While I do hold an airman's certificate of sorts (Remote Pilot) I am not really qualified to discuss the aviation aspects of the plane crashing or being shot down. I do know that internal combustion engines do not like to go lean, and considering the aircraft was prop driven you can safely assume it was using internal combustion engines. Automotive engines can put on a spectacular show when they go lean and start burning through pistons and such, but it can look like a giant sparkler from a distance. If the aircraft was going lean on its air-fuel mixture due to it running out of fuel, and the pilot was completely untrained as we have been led to believe, then it is likely he simply let the engines burn up and crashed. I see no evidence one way or the other that he crashed or was shot down, but if I was making the call and knew that a likely suicidal man had stolen an aircraft and planned to crash it I would say shoot the aircraft down where it was least likely to kill someone.

IF it wasn't shot down and I was an official in the President's administration I would want answers why it wasn't shot down. I wouldn't advertise that we shot it down, but I wouldn't deny it either.

[Beiruty]

Maybe I was wrong, It could be the blinking lights that confused me, it was almost sunset. I am listening to the extended audio video here

[Keith B]

I watched, there was sparkles and pops out of it before it went down and crashed.

I think what you are seeing in the video are reflections of the sun off of the planes lower fuselage and wing. The sun was low on the horizon and as the plane came across in front of the camera it reflected the light as it passed by. Does not look like a hit from guns from another aircraft.

[Beiruty]

I watched, there was sparkles and pops out of it before it went down and crashed.

I think what you are seeing in the video are reflections of the sun off of the planes lower fuselage and wing. The sun was low on the horizon and as the plane came across in front of the camera it reflected the light as it passed by. Does not look like a hit from guns from another aircraft.

Exactly right. Sorry for the confusion.

[G26ster]

While I do hold an airman's certificate of sorts (Remote Pilot) I am not really qualified to discuss the aviation aspects of the plane crashing or being shot down. I do know that internal combustion engines do not like to go lean, and considering the aircraft was prop driven you can safely assume it was using internal combustion engines. Automotive engines can put on a spectacular show when they go lean and start burning through pistons and such, but it can look like a giant sparkler from a distance. If the aircraft was going lean on its air-fuel mixture due to it running out of fuel, and the pilot was completely untrained as we have been led to believe, then it is likely he simply let the engines burn up and crashed. I see no evidence one way or the other that he crashed or was shot down, but if I was making the call and knew that a likely suicidal man had stolen an aircraft and planned to crash it I would say shoot the aircraft down where it was least likely to kill someone.

IF it wasn't shot down and I was an official in the President's administration I would want answers why it wasn't shot down. I wouldn't advertise that we shot it down, but I wouldn't deny it either.

The plane is a turboprop (jet engines turning the propeller shafts) not piston driven internal combustion engines.

[dcphoto]

My qualifications: 15 years aviation experience, mostly as a commercial helicopter pilot, but some airplane time.

Point 1 - Aerobatics
Performing aerobatic maneuvers is not difficult. Performing aerobatic maneuvers without damaging the aircraft or losing control *is* difficult. Based on the videos I've seen, I believe the claim that he had little or no flight training. Although the airplane is designed to handle high G loading from turbulence, the systems are probably not designed for inverted flight. A properly performed loop can be a 1G maneuver, but it takes training and experience to get it right. Getting it wrong can break things in a airplane not designed for aerobatics.

Point 2 - F-15 Intercept, but no shoot-down
The pilot (legally, even though he isn't licensed, he is considered the Pilot in Command of the aircraft) was in communication with air traffic control and was communicating his intentions. Based on his communication, although he was apparently suicidal, they must not have thought he was an immediate threat to anyone on the ground. If they believed he was an immediate threat the FAA/Air Force would have ordered (or the F-15 pilots in accordance with their ROI) the plane shot down. I haven't seen any up close photos of the wreckage, but the aerial photos seem to show the wreckage concentrated in a small area which is not consistent with an aircraft breaking up after being shot down. If they had chosen to shoot it down they would have used an air-to-air missile to immediately destroy the plane and eliminate it as a threat, which would have scattered the wreckage across a wide area.

Point 3 - He had no training
Video games (Microsoft Flight Simulator, and the like) are realistic enough that someone could conceivably learn enough about flying airplanes to actually fly one. In fact, there have been reported cases where an appropriately inebriated person with zero experience has managed to steal a small airplane, take off, fly around, and land without crashing or damaging the airplane. All aircraft have a checklist to guide the pilot through startup, takeoff, cruise, descent, and landing. If the checklist is detailed enough it can be used by an untrained individual to fly the airplane.

Regarding the comment about the engines "going lean," as has been pointed out the Q400 is a turboprop airplane. Turbine engines drive the propeller. I don't know enough about the Q400s engines to give specifics (and the next bit is speculation), but it's possible that the poorly performed aerobatics starved the engine of oil briefly and damaged the bearings. At 30,000+ RPM it wouldn't take long for them to fail. Any "sparkles" could be bits of engine being burned up after oil starvation, or he could have been running the engines above their max continuous exhaust temperature and they were failing because of that. In any case, there is no reason to believe that anything other than the pilot's lack of training (or desire to die) caused the plane to crash. It is possible, but not likely, that the crash was caused by fuel starvation since it seems to have caught fire immediately after crashing.

[ScottDLS]

The main thing about inverted flight or aerobatics with planes not designed for it is that their fuel pumps are not designed to work at certain orientations of the plane, therefore the engines could conceivably have lost power. Or so I've heard.

[G.A. Heath]

I was wrong when I typed that the aircraft used an internal combustion engine, but going lean can still do damage (it's just almost impossible for it to occur to a significant degree). This is what happens when I post without thinking things through or researching. If you have someone who (based on the audio posted to youtube) indicates they are suicidal and are physically beyond your ability to access you have limited options. Personally I wouldn't have hesitated to order the aircraft shot down if it were my call, especially once he started trying the aerobatic maneuvers. We got lucky that he crashed where he did.