Fatal Mid-Air: Caravan and UFO?

[FN FAL]

LINK TO FINAL NTSB REPORT ON CARAVAN MID AIR FATAL CRASH

I knew Tom Priziose, as he was my instructor at Pan Am for my initial Level D Caravan sim training.

He eventually went on to fly caravans for a freight company and crashed in this mysterious caravan accident.

Tom was a retired NYPD helicopter pilot and a real nice guy.

When I first heard of this crash, I thought for sure he had a load shift, but this NTSB report of a collision with an unidentified object is just plain odd.

 

[mattfish42]

You're right...that's really strange.

First thing that comes to mind is maybe the other plane dropped something. But that doesn't really make any sense.

Where's the other aircraft, the one he hit? Somebody else was flying in IMC without their transponder on let alone talking to ATC. How big is this swamp? Could the wreckage of the other plane have been missed?

As tragic as it always is to lose a friend so suddenly, how much worse when you don't know what happened. You have my prayers.

 

[FN FAL]

You have my prayers.

Thanks mattfish42...I appreciate the thought, but I think Tom's family deserves that more than I do...once again thank you for your consideration, that was very nice.

I knew Tom a just little bit and really clicked with him during my initial training. He was so excited about leaving Pan Am to be a Saab 340 instructor at Pinnacle, that he was showing me the CPT pannels in the 340 mock up room at Pan Am and asking me questions about some of the items on the panels. Somehow things didn't work out for him at Pinnacle and he came back to PanAm for a while to teach caravan again. He said it had to do with 9/11? I'm not going to question how that Pinnacle thing went. He then left Pan Am to fly freight in the Caravan at this particular job where he died.

It's probably a good thing that they found some cause to the accident other than pilot error...I'm sure the insurance companies were withholding any payout to the family untill some cause was established.

The odd thing is this object could have been another aircraft that was being used for illegal activity such as drug running or was as you said an illegal IFR flyer. Obviously there is someone out there that knows more about this crash than the feds do and they have probably repaired their aircraft and repainted it or it's in the boonies somewhere in a pile.

I would also have to wonder if the other plane crashed, why wasn't there an ALNOT issued or at least a missing persons report?

Odd and sad.

Have a fun and safe week mattfish!

 

[A Squared]

That's bizzare, truly bizzare.

Whatever it hit, it hit hard. Take a look at the list of places they found red paint transfer: Instrument panel support, Lower aft side of cockpit cargo barrier. If you're getting paint transfer on pieces *inside* the plane, it wasn't just one of those "bump" midairs that caused one plane to go out of control and the other to continue on it's merry way. You would think that if two planes collided that hard, both would crash ... so where's the other plane? You'd think that there would be pieces of the other plane scattered around too. investigators found only one small piece of anodized aluminum which may the been a piece of another plane.

Sorry about your friend, FN_FAL

 

[Oakum_Boy]

The simplest explantation is probably the correct one. More than likely he hit a drug running aircraft. In the area of the crash, there is a huge open bay that another aircraft would have simply sunk without a trace. Weather, time, and location would be conducive to a drug running operation. I would surmise the costal defence radar ballons were not being used due to the weather. No one would report that airplane or person missing either. Whatever he hit, he saw coming, but not in time to tell us what it was... Sad.

 

[Jedi_Cheese]

Thing is he had time to get a warning out and yet hit the UFO almost straight on. Wouldn't you think that his first instinct would be to change paths?

Plus C-208's are not exactly a wooden biplane in construction. To hit that hard, it should have done a hell of alot of damage to the other aircraft. The spread is 200 yards at a fall from 3k ft so the other aircraft would be somewhat nearby. Plus whatever part (or parts) hit his aircraft should be near the wreckage someplace, the other aircraft might have gone ballistic but not the parts...

PS: Sorry about your friend and hope his family is doing ok

 

[jetexas]

"I needed to deviate, I needed to deviate, I needed to deviate, I needed" end of transmission.

Pretty chilling, but it sounds to me that maybe he had already hit something and was going down during these transmissions.

The wierd thing is the report states that some of the small red transfer marks were going in different directions. Red marks on the aft part of the cargo barrier? Maybe he got hit from below and behind?

 

[falcon20driver]

Tom did my first checkride in the Caravan at Pan Am back on sept. 14, 2001, he told me right after my ride he was heading up to New York to help some of his former coworkers at the New York City Police Department.

Tom was a super nice guy.

 

[starchkr]

Could the DC-10 have been on some sort of military training mission...I don't know, maybe escorted by smaller a/c or maybe towing targets???? Like i said i don't know, but if that was the case, then the military would do everything they could to cover it up. Just an idea, but it seems to have something to do with the DC-10 going past...what about wake turbulence...the red paint could have been caused by cargo he was carrying being thrown around the a/c after hitting that turbulence.

Sorry to hear about the accident.

 

[Oakum_Boy]

Thing is he had time to get a warning out and yet hit the UFO almost straight on. Wouldn't you think that his first instinct would be to change paths?
B]

Not in night IMC. Whatever it was, it caught him by complete surprise. I don't think many of us would be quick enough to formulate an escape manuver and execute it by instruments. He probably didn't even know what it was or which way to go to avoid it.