Okay- I found a better map.

Yup. Right there. Damn. I was riding up Beech grove (mentioned in the article) but this happened a little later in the day. Probably missed the rescue squads by an hour or two.

https://news.yahoo.com/search-parties-located-plane-crash-142257125.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

edit- better view of the google map:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=13ik9kqBzb-VPZWHbCnD50d9pp40tQFU&ll=37.935118290087416%2C-79.0717057539586&z=13

Zoom in and you can see big levels 4x4 trail. I used to do a lot of mountainbiking there. It runs adjacent to St. Mary's so you can drive/ride on it. Mostly I ride on the parkway. St. Mary's swimming hole nearby. The Mt. Carmel church mentioned in the yahoo article is in Steeles Tavern. My dad is buried there. Pretty rugged where it crashed.

From what I read, the fighters saw the Cessna pilot slumped over. What about passengers in the back? If they were alert, you would think they would be looking out the windows and the fighter pilots would see them.

That makes me think that everybody was lights out.

They were all either passed out ot already dead .... can you even survive at 34,000 very long.... I doubt it.

Wikipedia says service ceiling is 45000 feet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_Citation_V

Looks like the first responders need to return to basic for land nav....

That doesn't help if a seal fails (or the pilot is suicidal and hits the cabin pres dump switch). At 34k ft you'd have just seconds to get a mask on before you'd become disoriented and useless.

Turns out it was a problem with the pilot.




He gave way too much money to OMB

^^This. I think all of the passengers were out. I didn't think about hypoxia, but I figured it had to be something that affected all of them - not just the pilot.

Why didn't the air force just board the plane and bring it down safely like in the 1996 documentary "Executive Decision" starring Kurt Russel, Halle Berry, and Steven Segal?

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RY_D9rFoWLo" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So, it gets a little weird. Apparently the owner of the plane and his wife adopted their daughter at age 40.

Virginia private jet crash victims included ‘top shelf’ pilot, single mom adopted at age 40

https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-private-jet-crash-victims-top-shelf-pilot-single-mom-adopted-age-40

Explore the Fox News apps that are right for you at http://www.foxnews.com/apps-products/index.html.

Would a top shelf pilot have recognized a loss of cabin pressure and released oxygen masks?

Dan Gryder's take on this is interesting. I don't buy all of it, he claims that the lack of frost indicates that it was not a pressurization incident. He also reported that the pilot communicated at 24000 leaving for 34000 so there was pressurization there. But other sources report that a slow leak would cause frost.
Gryder puts all of the blame on a lack of a copilot.
Interestingly enough, the owner has only owned this plane since April of this year.

How do you "adopt" an adult?

It's beginning to smell.

troll..

NOT shot down. That area has a restricted airspace full time. Similar to temporay ones set up for Super Bowl, Olympics, Govt Summits etc. Scrambling fighters is part of the protocol when a TOI (Target of Interest) is identified...

Aircraft is only shot down with a very high authority order, and when iminent threat to the area being protected.

I do have some knowledge as I helped plan the airspace defense for the 2010 Olympic winter games and visited/witnessed plenty of other similar setups leading up to our planning. Including working with those on shift at NORAD and the air wepaons coordinators on 9/11.

We intercepted a few aircaft during the 2010 Games, public may or may not know. The protocol in place is pretty stout and very thourough.

Cheers

Likely not

Correct, remember what happened to Payne Stewart?

Cheers

I agree. If a plane is on autopilot, with an unresponsive and visually verified unconscious pilot, do they just let it run out of fuel and crash into an unknown (maybe densely populated) site or force it down in a safer area?

Poses an interesting dilemma for sure imo....

Hypoxia/hypoxemia dulls cognition globally. It simultaneously erodes functional capacity as well as capacity to recognize the erosion and/or critically reason toward the cause. The link below covers the angles on the issue.

Steps toward prevention of this issue seem simple but I'm sure there would be ample push back by anti-regulation sorts for which the tobacco industry is forever grateful.


https://www.faa.gov/pilots/training/airman_education/topics_of_interest/hypoxia