My sister said she noticed a lot of turbulence over Montana within 3 hours of that accident. It was enough that she and some other passengers were praying. Don’t know if that had much to do with it but I found it interesting when she mentioned that, and she had not heard about the accident yet.
A friend of mine in Hong Kong whom flies for Cathay Pacific ,sent me an e-mail and said that the price of tea in China just went up.
About the route change, of course you have to request it, but ATC isn’t required to ask -why-, and often do not. Obviously if there’s a hint of distress in the request they probably WILL, of course.
Ok, that make absolutely no sense. You request a change in destination and ATC doesn’t ask why? I don’t know how many of those 11,000 hours you have flying in IFR, but I don’t ever recall a single solitary time when I changed destinations and they did not ask why.
Well, since my hours are in actual airplanes rather than flight simulator (I use my real name here, plenty people in the av community know me) I’m sticking with my claim. ATC doesn’t give a shit WHY you would want to go somewhere else unless they suspect you’re in distress and even THEN they have no legal obligation to pry into your choices. Please tell me you’re just being contrary here…
Ok
Ha Ha, let me guess. You are trying to say I play video games or something? I realize they didn’t have simulators for type ratings in the Lockeed 18 back in the day, but now they use these big fancy machines to type a pilot in a jet or 12500+ a/c. Since everyone here knows you then maybe you could ask around, I am sure they have heard of them.
Here in the real world, name or no name, What I said before you tried to dilute this conversation is that if you change destination on an IFR flight plan you are REQUIRED to tell ATC and they WILL ask you why.
I never said that they would not accept a simple answer, but you have to give one. If you flew for a living we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Lastly I am not sure what point you are trying to make, but this is one of the dumbest arguments I have ever heard and it is pretty obvious who pays their bills by flying.
I’ve changed destinations many times and had them ask me why. didn’t mean I had to tell them anything other than for operational needs or customer needs. But I have had them ask! And I’ve got 13500 hours in actual planes not including the time spent getting the type ratings in the sims.
Well, I never said they NEVER ask (never had so much trouble with plain English), I said they do not HAVE to. Why is that so difficult to grasp? My point was (as you absolutely agree) that requesting a different or intermediate destination can and is routinely done for perfectly innocuous reasons and doesn’t necessarily indicate any operational problem as was claimed by the other guy - and I really have to wonder about some anonymous internet poster who calls himself ‘great something or other’
jeezus
editing: Also, just saw one of the NTSB guys giving a presser…he was saying they will be trying to figure out why the guy was ‘diverting.’ Now, if ATC ALWAYS ASKS, don’t you think this NTSB guy would know that and say something like “we will soon know because Air Traffic Control always asks why a pilot wants to go somewhere different from his original destination”…right?
To make a long story short…
bullshit.
By the way, here’s one way I know you’re a poser…the BE18 NEVER needed a type rating, junior. But if you want to take me for a ride in your jet, let me know…I come back to TPA several times a year.
krs@valornet.com
Ok Karl
Some people don’t want to put their personal information out on the web for all to see. You can wonder about that all you want but since the aviation world is so small it wouldn’t take much to figure out who anyone is.
Here is what you wrote in case you forgot: “About the route change, of course you have to request it, but ATC isn’t required to ask -why-, and often do not. Obviously if there’s a hint of distress in the request they probably WILL, of course.”
Maybe you were talking about route change, when I had stated destination change. Asking for a route change, yeah, not a big deal. So I guess it doesnt matter.
Just guessing what a L-18 is.
BUTTE, Mont. - Investigators will examine whether a single-engine turboprop plane was overloaded when it nose-dived into a cemetery and killed 14 people on board who were heading to a retreat for the ultrarich for a ski trip, a federal official said Monday.
The plane was likely designed to carry a total of 11 people, including two pilots, Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a news conference. Officials said seven adults and seven children were killed in the crash Sunday; a relative said there were two 4-year-olds and the other children were ages 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9.
“It will take us a while to understand,” Mark Rosenker, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a news conference. “We have to get the weights of all the passengers, we have to get the weight of the fuel, all of the luggage.”
Rosenker said it was possible that a very small child would be on the lap of an adult.
“We are going to have to try to understand how and why there were an additional three people (over the assumed configuration) on the aircraft,” Rosenker said. Some luggage was retrievable for weight and measurement analysis, he said.
I wasnt trying to start anything up there, I was just stating that I have had ATC ask me when I’ve done a destination change. Then there were times I’ve told them before they even asked when it was due to operational needs. I was not implying that they had to ask, I was just stating that from what I recall they have asked most of the time. Heck, there have been times they knew before I did that I was changing destinations because my company would call them to relay the message. Even funnier was the one time ATC gave us a name and said it was new to them as well!! 
Then we looked up the Lat/Longs they gave us and asked atc if they had ever heard of sun valley…
Ah that’s my neck of the woods… very nice area. Obviously I have nothing important to add. Just kind of surprised to see Sun Valley on the forums
You tell your boss you changed your destination to get a drink. 
Investigators say the 65 year-old pilot of a plane that crashed in Butte, Mont. - killing all 14 aboard - was a former Air Force pilot with thousands of flight hours piloting civilian aircraft.
The National Transportation Safety Board also says that pilot Buddy Summerfield’s decision to divert the flight to Butte from Bozeman should not have created problems because that was the original backup plan.
is there any info indicating another pilot in the right seat? considering the acft, length of flight and flight plan, was just one pilot adequate under the reported conditions?
By all means, please share your thoughts on this topic! I’m sure you have quite a few. If you look back to our posts before the front passed through we would all appreciate some experienced insight on the matter.
For one, would 14 (even kids) plus their stuff in a PC12 be as crazy as it sounds to me?
AS for moderating it should be left to the users in the first place, not the site admins IMHO. Take your beefs elsewhere.
so total newby here…but trying to learn what I can.
So we’ve got 3 families and one pilot: Children reported to be aged 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7 and 9. Moms and Dads totalled 6. Plus longtime family pilot. (One of the dads was also a licensed pilot.)
The online registration info I found for N128CM shows 12 seats. Would that be 2 pilot chairs, 9 in the cabin plus a jump seat?? Still would be one seat short given the children’s ages and the earlier posted Part 91 regs…but not unthinkable or as absurd as original reports would have had us thinking (ie qty=17)…but still NOT LEGAL [most likely].
This is not to assert that they were exceeding max payload, just that they were almost certainly exceeding max passenger rule.
My payload estimate was like this:
7 adults @ 180 = 1260
7 kids with those ages = 280
Luggage estimate = 400 (Big ??? as to accuracy)
(assumes most ski eqpmt probably left in or rented in MT)
Anyway…that gets to like 1940 lbs. Leaving maybe 1,000+ for fuel?
If some people were late adds to the trip…or some people brought more gear than anticipated…can easily see where pilot would have had critical issues concerning weight totals, CG and fuel.
Do any of you use special calculators for this sort of thing? What is the preferred one? Found eFlite Aviator Pro…any good? Thanks.
It looks as if the children’s parents went with them this time. Tragic, but I’m guessing it was preventable. Like many accidents, it may turn out to be not one, but a series of mishaps or mistakes.
News reports this morning state that the NTSB is looking into icing being a factor in the crash!
Just read the same thing. Thoughts on this, I’d have to say again I’ve been learning a lot from the pilot’s in the thread.
Sounds to me like the pilot got a little slow for the conditions as well as maybe a distraction or two! Really sad when it wipes out quite a few in one family. I live in a town where we had a doctor/dentist who was not instrument rated attempt the ILS 3 times and on the 3rd attempt shreaded his airplane through the trees. He had his family with him when he did this.