The incident happened at about 7:45 p.m. Monday. No one on the ground was injured.
The pilot’s identity was not immediately released Tuesday pending an examination by the coroner, Deputy Police Chief John Reardon said.
The aircraft had departed from Charlotte, N.C., and was heading toward Essex County Airport in Fairfield, FAA spokesman Jim Peters said. Wayne is 5 miles northeast of Fairfield.
The pilot contacted the airport tower at 7:36 p.m., indicating the craft was just over 11 miles from the runway, Peters said. Three minutes later, the pilot reported the craft was just over 6 miles away.
At 7:41 p.m., the pilot reported the craft was just over 3 miles away and was given clearance to land.
Two minutes later, the Essex air controller asked if the Beechcraft had engaged its landing light, but received no response, Peters said. Repeated inquiries also met with silence, he said.
I personaly was at the airport in the morning, fog was so bad couldnt see top of the controll tower from the ground
“Bill Maer, a spokesman for the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department, said Wayne police and sheriff’s department officials were searching outlying areas to see whether anyone had ejected from the plane”.
What???
I’ve always known Bonanzas to be aircraft offered with an extensive list of available accessories, but I never realized that ejector seats were included among them.
I think you’re imbuing them with too much common sense!
Searching “outlying areas to see whether anyone had ejected from the plane” is not the same as searching the outlying areas to see if anyone was accidentally thrown from the aircraft.
Back in the day the Bonanza was referred to as the “Dr. killer” given the number of low hour MDs who transitioned to them and wound up getting behind the operating curve in flight.
BION, most jets (especially FADEC equipped ones) are easier to fly than your average high performance piston aircraft.
The only thing that’s a given in jets over piston aircraft is that “things” tend to happen faster and it’s easy to get behind the flight curve.
I earned a ride in an F-4 Phantom at Lackland AFB in 1964 shortly after it entered the USAF inventory and at a time when I was still flying the PT-17 as my primary trainer.
The F-4 driver proceeded to “explore the flight envelope” and I will never forget that my brain (and stomach) were always two or three excursions behind the aircraft throughout the flight.
I haven’t seen any type specific data for Bonanzas, but here are a few other data points:
Insurance companies have very high rates for pilots transitioning to complex aircraft with less than 200 total hours and less than 50 hours in complex aircraft.
The Navy found in a study that pilots with between 700 and 1500 hours show an increase in accident rates. The hypothesis is that people start to get complacent when they reach that plateau.
For 18 Cirrus fatal accidents for which pilot experience was listed, only 3 (16%) had less than 100 hours total time and 14 (78%) have more than 400 hours total time.
There is a book called the Killing Zone (IIRC), about a similar plateau for private pilots around 300 hours. I think the author blames a combination of complacency and change in mission.
Flying for the sake of learning is much safer than for travel. It makes sense for many reasons.
I wonder how many hours the low time Cirrus pilots are flying solo cross country IFR? Makes a big difference. The higher time pilots spend proportionately less time training, and more traveling (I know I do). This makes a difference for the high performance numbers, exagerating the differences that are already present.
High performance singles with us average pilots are just not equivalent to the Boeing planes with the professional crew. Sometimes, people forget that, tragically.
Still, if I am going on 600NM trips, am I not about as safe in the Mooney as a 172 due to the difference in speed?
