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Caravan goes down in Lake Erie

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CrewDawg

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 4, 2003
Posts
377
Missing plane wreckage found in Lake Erie
SANDUSKY, Ohio (AP) — A single-engine plane carrying at least nine people crashed Saturday in snowy weather shortly after taking off from a Canadian island in Lake Erie. Helicopters were searching the frigid water for survivors.
The pilot radioed a frantic call for help shortly after taking off about 5 p.m., but controllers then lost contact with the plane, said U.S. Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Christopher Pasciuto. An island resident heard the plane laboring just before the crash, the Ontario Provincial Police said.

A helicopter found the wreckage of the Georgian Express plane at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday about a mile west of Ontario's Pelee Island, Pasciuto said. It was nose-down in the water with ice around it, airline president Paul Mulrooney said.

Helicopters were using searchlights to look for survivors in the water, U.S. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Mark Freeman said. The cutter Neah Bay was headed from the Detroit area to join the search.

The plane, a Cessna 208 Caravan, was bound for Windsor, Ontario, across the border from Detroit, and crashed about 20 miles north of Sandusky, Ohio.

Mulrooney said 10 people — nine passengers and a pilot — may have been on board, but it was unclear whether one passenger made the flight. Ontario Provincial Police said nine people were on board.

Mulrooney brushed aside suggestions that weather conditions may have played a role in the crash.

"It's very capable of flying in this weather," he said, adding that the plane logs 8,000 to 9,000 hours in all kinds of weather. "The weather was poor down there, but from what we know, it is flyable type of weather."

Mulrooney did not identify the pilot, but said he was experienced with the Cessna Caravan and had worked for Georgian Express for more than a year.

The pilot was from Toronto and the passengers were all from southwestern Ontario — four from Chatham, two from Windsor and two from Kingsville, the provincial police said in a written statement. All were men.

The statement said police in Windsor and Chatham were locating relatives to notify them.

A team of investigators from Ottawa was to be sent to the crash site Sunday morning, said John Cottreau, a spokesman for the Transport Safety Board of Canada.

Mulrooney said his Mississauga, Ontario-based company has flights between the island and Windsor up to three times daily.

"It's only used in the winter months when the island is icebound and they can't use the ferry to get back and forth," he said.

The region has been locked in bitterly cold weather, with temperatures in the 20s Saturday in northern Ohio. The water temperature in Lake Erie, where waves were running 3 feet to 5 feet, was about 33 degrees.

Bob Wernecke, a pilot who flies between Ohio's resort islands just south of Pelee Island, said he made six flights during the day before deciding about 5 p.m. that the low cloud cover and freezing rain had made conditions unsafe.

"It's nasty," he said by phone from Put-In-Bay, Ohio. "It's freezing drizzle, kind of bad."

Located in the western Lake Erie basin between Cleveland and Detroit, Pelee Island and Ohio's Lake Erie islands are popular summertime destinations but lightly populated in the off-season.


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Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 
Anyone know the weather enroute? Could this have been another C208 victim to icing?
 
Here's Windsors WX, the accident happened at 2200Z, Windsor is 32 miles from the accident and also their destination.

CYQG 180700Z 25006KT 3SM BR BKN013 OVC030 M01/M03 A2963 RMK SC7SC1 RFZDZ SLP043
CYQG 180616Z 26009KT 3SM -FZDZ BR SCT005 SCT011 OVC028 RMK ST4SC1SC4
CYQG 180600Z 26009KT 2 1/2SM -FZDZ BR BKN008 BKN011 OVC027 M01/M03 A2965 RMK ST6SC1SC2 SLP050
CYQG 180548Z 26010KT 2 1/2SM -FZDZ BR SCT007 OVC027 RMK ST4SC4
CYQG 180522Z 27011KT 2SM -FZDZ BR OVC004 RMK ST8
CYQG 180500Z 24007KT 2SM BR OVC004 M02/M03 A2966 RMK ST8 SLP054
CYQG 180447Z 25007KT 2SM BR OVC002 RMK ST8
CYQG 180400Z 24008KT 2 1/2SM -SHSN BR OVC006 M03/M04 A2966 RMK ST8 SLP054
CYQG 180342Z 24008KT 2 1/2SM -SHSN BR OVC006 RMK ST8
CYQG 180300Z 25009KT 2 1/2SM BR OVC005 M03/M04 A2969 RMK ST8 SLP063
CYQG 180200Z 25007KT 2SM BR OVC005 M03/M04 A2972 RMK ST8 SLP074
CYQG 180134Z 24006KT 2SM BR OVC004 RMK ST8 CIG VRBL 3-5
CYQG 180100Z 24006KT 2SM -SN -FZRA BR OVC004 M03/M04 A2973 RMK ST8 CIG VRBL 3-5 SLP078
CYQG 180000Z 25004KT 1 1/4SM -SN -FZRA BR OVC004 M04/M05 A2975 RMK ST8 CIG VRBL 3-5 /S02/ SLP086
CYQG 172300Z 21005KT 1 1/2SM -SN -FZRA BR OVC004 M04/M06 A2976 RMK ST8 CIG VRBL 3-5 SLP089
CYQG 172235Z 19005KT 1 1/2SM -SN -FZRA BR OVC004 RMK ST8 CIG VRBL 3-5
CYQG 172200Z 20005KT 1 1/2SM -SN -FZRA BR OVC005 M05/M06 A2979 RMK ST8 SLP100
CYQG 172141Z 19006KT 2SM -SN -FZRA BR OVC005 RMK ST8
CYQG 172100Z 18006KT 1 3/4SM -SN OVC008 M05/M07 A2982 RMK SN2SC6 SLP109
CYQG 172048Z 18007KT 1 3/4SM -SN OVC008 RMK SN2SC6
CYQG 172017Z 18011KT 2SM -SN FEW008 OVC033 RMK SN1SF2SC6
CYQG 172000Z 18010KT 1 1/2SM -SN OVC031 M05/M08 A2985 RMK SN2SC6 SLP121
CYQG 171927Z 17010KT 1 1/2SM -SN OVC027 RMK SN2SC6
CYQG 171910Z 16009KT 1SM -SN OVC029 RMK SN2SC6
CYQG 171900Z 16011KT 3/4SM -SN OVC023 M06/M08 A2989 RMK SN3SC5 PRESFR SLP134
CYQG 171826Z 16010KT 1SM -SN OVC020 RMK SN3SC5
CYQG 171800Z 17008KT 1SM -SN OVC025 M06/M09 A2996 RMK SN2SC6 /S03/ PRESFR SLP159
CYQG 171741Z 18007KT 1 1/2SM -SN OVC027 RMK SN2SC6
CYQG 171735Z 17008KT 1SM -SN OVC025 RMK SN2SC6 /S01/
CYQG 171700Z 16008KT 3/4SM -SN OVC030 M07/M09 A3001 RESN RMK SN2SC6 SLP177
 
Yea, saturday sucked flying on the backside of that weather, much less in it.

How could you have not known that it was going to be a muthafugga that day?

At 4:00 am in the wisconsin side of that wx, I was calling work telling them I was going to try to make into work, but that I wasn't going to die in a car accident trying to get to work so I could be flying monday freight on saturday. It took me an hour and half to do a 55 mile commute to work. All freezing rain covered by snow.

We didn't even take off from milwaukee till after 8:30 A.M. Most of our scheduled departures were about 6:00 A.M. Even then we got a lot of mixed and and clear icing till we were north of the weather. Looking east the tops were high and looked wet as hell.
 
I was watching the Canadian news a little while ago. They were saying that the plane went through the ice and they are still looking for it and the bodies.
 

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