So.... Did they shoot that private jet down?
 

We'll likely never know the real story, but yeah .... I think it's very likely. What were their other viable options with an unresponsive pilot? Methinks they let it get over BFE .... then did what needed to be done under those circumstances.

edit: Maybe it was a private plane .... and not a jet .... I dunno

The cessna?
Somic boom over dc...


That's a conspiracy theory...

The fighter jets went supersonic in pursuit according to the news .... was it a Cessna .... I just caught a bit of it.

I never much cared for those Sonic's.
They make me go boom.

I have two theories. Either is acceptable.

1) Pilot is non-responsive, crashes.
2) Pilot is wanting to make a point / political statement. Get's steered off course. Kills self.

No. It crashed about a half hour from here. It sure sounds like Payne Stewart all over again. Flew on autopilot to Long Island, its destination, likely with a dead pilot and pax, and then flew south until it ran out of fuel.

Dumb question:
Could a fighter flying across the path of the jet cause enough turbulence to disengage the autopilot, thus picking the place where it went down?

This is Payne Stewart all over again.

On the other hand, if you want to send this to PARF - look at the owners of the plane.

By report, it was a private Cessna Citation V 560 at 34,000 feet that traveled through restricted space.

Remember Payne Stewart? Seems entirely possible to be another bad situation of people poisoned by their own plane which flew itself until it ran out of fuel.

I know nothing of aviation but I saw a video over the weekend discussing Chines harassment of US military assets and in the video, a Chinese fighter crosses in front of a surveillance plane causing turbulence.

So, maybe?


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I agree with all of you with regards to the 'cause.... just wondering if it ran out of fuel and crashed, or it was forced down.

I heard HRC was flying the lead fighter jet too .... or mebbe it was Bill :D

No wide debris field. A single deep crater. A few arm sized chunks of aluminum visible along with scattered human remains.
If it was a shoot down, they picked a good spot as it was very remote. But the single crater sort of eliminates that theory.

some russian spent $500 on facebook ads and brought it down.


yes, jet turbulence could send it out of control. but not in a predictable way. it could spin immediately into a mountain or go another hundred miles and hit a school. not a responsible thing to do.

Thanks!

Commonly held belief that the Payne Stewart aircraft would have been shot down. However, DOD denies that. Interesting that Canadian PM had authorized shoot down:

Assuming Wiki is correct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_crash

There was some speculation in the media that the fighter jets were prepared to shoot down the Learjet if it threatened to crash in a heavily populated area.[citation needed] Officials at the Pentagon strongly denied that possibility. Shooting down the plane "was never an option," Air Force spokesman Captain Joe Della Vedova said, adding that "I don't know where that came from."[9]

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien authorized the Canadian Forces Air Command to shoot down the plane if it entered Canadian airspace without making contact. He writes in his 2018 memoirs, "The plane was heading toward the city of Winnipeg and the air traffic controllers feared that it would crash into the Manitoba capital. I was asked to give permission for the military to bring down the plane if that became necessary. With a heavy heart, I authorized the procedure. Shortly after I made my decision, I learned that the plane had crashed in South Dakota."[10]

I'm sure the fighter jocks had a pretty good fix on what was going on. Once the plane departed DC airspace it was over the mountains for the most part. Flight Aware data shows it dropping at 30k ft/minute at the end, so it likely ran out of fuel and then lost airspeed and stall/spun in. But yeah, had it been a threat to anyone other actions would have been appropriate.
Also, big crater but no sign of massive fire...

Agree...

Shooting it down shifts accountability for resulting ground damage/casualties onto the military.

Most likely the pilot experienced Hypoxia and just went unconscious due to not enough pressurization. Hopefully the NTSB will figure it out.

Holy crap Greg! I was riding my bike near there this weekend.

One report says montebello. Another St. Mary's wilderness. I was on the parkway there Sat. On wintergreen on Sunday. It was very overcast on Sunday above about 1000 ft. Low hanging clouds, not that that would have caused anything, but I couldn't see 100 ft on the bike once I rode up there.

edit- I'm seeing augusta county sheriff cars, so I'm thinking st marys. My dad had a place over there.

Yeah, St Mary's. Heavy going for the search parties, and the helicopters had issues with the low ceiling.

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