N224GS 2005 Cirrus down near Mt. Rainier - Washington State

The plane is owned by a couple from Bellevue, WA. Probably not Colton Harris as the comments in the news stories suggest.

king5.com/news/Small-plane-c … 06857.html

seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l … ash20.html

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N224GS

http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=224GS

I love the comment about "calling a taxidermist and getting an airplane stuffed. What a jagov.

Interestingly enough in the photo sequence now posted on the King5 site that the BRS seems to have been deployed and the shearing at the firewall is consistent with a “belly flop” but the lines seem to be entangled with the wing (before the crash?) and there is no sign of the chute.

4 foot crater? :confused:

I don’t know whats going on in those pictures. That line around the wing looks like a strap used to move the plane. The rescuers might have cut the plane open and used those straps to move it or keep it from moving. Hopefully the survivor can shed some light into what happened.

http://media.king5.com/images/032010morton_planecrash5.jpg

http://media.king5.com/images/032010morton_planecrash2.jpg

http://media.king5.com/images/032010morton_planecrash4.jpg

Shocking photos… :frowning: :open_mouth:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011399777_planecrash21m.html

The man who died in a plane crash on Friday evening was identified as Bellevue resident Shane Sullivan.

Sullivan, 39, was returning from a business trip to the Bay Area when the single-engine Cirrus SR22 he was piloting went down in the front yard of a house near Highway 508, southwest of Mount Rainier. An unidentified passenger, a woman, was injured and taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Heather Sullivan, 38, said her husband sent her a text message early Friday evening saying he would be home around 8 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. because of a strong headwind

Fuel exhaustion?

My guess do to lack of a post crash fire

Straps are the BRS Ballistic parachute lines.

The wife did state the aircraft had a recent history of engine trouble, and recently had work performed on the internals of the engine.

He almost made the field, just clipping a tree at the last moment. Interesting that the pilot owned his own insurance company - wonder if he chose not to use the chute, or was already flying to low to use it.

A pilot from my local flying club at an engine out on departure, he picked a landing spot, tried to restart the engine, when he looked out the window again he was already at tree level and hit a house!, fortunately he wasn’t badly hurt.

C-GMHU Cessna 172 photo

A couple more stories…

http://www.chronline.com/news/article_7cde35e0-3500-11df-a2ef-001cc4c002e0.html

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/417127_crash21.html

The pilot’s wife, Heather Sullivan, says her husband was trying to make an emergency landing in Morton at the time of the crash.

In a phone interview, she said the plane previously had engine problems. Her husband noticed one of the cylinders wasn’t working, and had mechanics check it over last month during a flight annual.

Now she questions whether that earlier problem contributed to the fatal crash.

If I noticed a cylinder wasn’t working, I’d more than have a mechanic check it over during the next annual. :open_mouth:

Here’s another view, you can see the chute in the background. More news stories are speculating on fuel running out. Maybe a case of Getthereitis, Seattle news reported the wife was pressuring him to get home via text messages to watch the kids so she could go out with her girlfriends.

http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/chronline.com/content/tncms/assets/editorial/b/57/978/b5797820-35d6-11df-bc48-001cc4c002e0.image.jpg

http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/chronline.com/content/tncms/assets/editorial/8/52/84e/85284e62-35d6-11df-a79d-001cc4c002e0.image.jpg

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/163591/

Empty tank, not engine trouble, may have led to fatal crash
A Washington State woman says a Cirrus SR22 that crashed killing her husband Friday night had a history of engine trouble, though an aviation expert suggests the more likely cause of the accident is that it ran out of gas.

Note: The Washington State Department of Ecology is NOT on scene. If there was so much as a drop of fuel spilled, they would be out there in their space suits and would have evacuated the entire county.

At the crash site:
The engine was almost cold.
The fuel lines between the cowling and engine were leaking and had to be wrapped.
Angle of impact was very steep.
Chute looked like it deployed after the plane impacted the ground as it was laid out straight and showed no signs of opening. The hatch that covers the chute system was also laying with the airplane.
Prop damage showed it was not rotating, but RPM guage stuck at 1200. Would this have been a “freewheeling” RPM with a dead engine?

My prayers with the wife and children of the pilot.
Also praying the passenger makes a full recovery.

On another note:
Had the airplane went down 1/2 mile north or south of the crash location it would have been in thick timber and very steep mountains. The next paved road north of the crash site is 15+ miles away in another county. Lookup 46deg. 34’00.23 N x 122deg. 18’42.93 W on Google Earth to see the location of the crash. From the direction of the impact, it looks like he was going for the hay field but ran short a quarter mile.
Very tragic.

What is your source for this information?

Agreed. Very sad situation.

I’m going to leave my wife instructions not to talk to anyone (ie media) if I should meet a similar fate.

I was there.

20/20 vision questions why if engine problems or fuel starvation was the condition, why the chute simply wasn’t used. As noted under these circumstances, the insurance company had already taken possession, time to simply survive the cash.

Thanks for sharing your observations. Was the plane found where it’s shown in the pictures?

Yes. It came from the West direction, then pivoted on it’s nose upon impact to end up facing West. The chute deployed well after impact. Also, the nose of the plane was cut off at the front of the doors to remove both passenger and pilot. It looked a little more intact before extraction.

“20/20 vision questions why if engine problems or fuel starvation was the condition, why the chute simply wasn’t used. As noted under these circumstances, the insurance company had already taken possession, time to simply survive the cash.”

That is the one question I have no answer for…
Carroll was completely disoriented from the time I arrived to when she was take by emergency crews to Morton General to await life flight. It was all we could do to keep her awake. She never did understand she was in an accident, or even an airplane. I really hope she makes a full recovery and helps to fill in some gaps.
Anyone have any news on how she is doing?

Damn! How did he manage to walk away from that?

The flight distance between the Bay Area and Renton, WA is within the SR-22/A’s range of 1,049 nmi (1,207 mi; 1,943 km), with reserves at 65% power. Flight distance between Morton, WA and Renton, WA is 64 miles.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/89074722.html

Here’s a little info. Sounds like she’s doing pretty well, all things considered.