Missing Donellon, FL SONEX Flyin Pilot

[thomasjones42]

Has anyone heard any news about the pilot and plane that went missing from the recent Florida Sonex gathering?

[SonexN369UR]

Still missing. His son was at Zephyrhills last week and headed to Dunellon area again from N.Y.
JACK

[SonexN369UR]

Ted Weiss, the missing pilot of a Sonex that crashed near Dunellon Florida was found by hunters this A.M. No further details at this time.
Jack

[Bryan Cotton]

Link to story:
http://tbo.com/pasco-county/missing-pil ... -20141020/

[tonyr]

RIP Ted, condolences to your family and friends

[fastj22]

I'm saddened but relieved they found Ted. I hope we all can learn something about the cause.

There was another Florida Waiex that went down this month on the other side of the state. Took nearly a week to recover the wreckage.

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief ... 0155&key=1

Since I became active at my GA airport (KFLY), I've now seen 3 incidences of fatalities of people I've met.
One of the primary developers of the airport died in a crash of his gyroplane two weeks ago after hitting power lines.
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief ... 3704&key=1
A hangar on the backside of mine no longer has an RV7 which went down in Iowa two months ago.
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief ... 5951&key=1
That same hangar previously housed a Mooney that crashed a year ago in Oklahoma in bad weather.
http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief ... 4843&key=1

I had met all three pilots.

Vigilance.

[ihab]

Wow, that's horrible. Or at least, it might have been okay in 1950, or even 1970. But now when commercial air travel is ridiculously safe and even the most distracted texting teen can expect their car, with crumple zones and airbags and what not, to protect them in most collisions, it is no longer something we can disregard....

What's the answer? What would it look like if the world were such that an "emergency landing" due to engine failure or accidental bad weather encounter were routine, as routine as pulling over off the highway and calling triple-A on your cell phone? What would aircraft look like if they were designed for that scenario?

Heck, the gyrocopter accident is particularly dismaying because one would think the great strength of gyrocopters is _precisely_ their vaunted ability to autorotate to a zero-roll emergency landing, unlike their unsafe scary fixed-wing brethren. ;) But apparently the power lines these poor people ran into did not get the memo.

Ihab

[ihab]

Ok like for example this accident (Florida Waiex mentioned upthread) --

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief ... 0155&key=1

This is the presumed accident area --

http://goo.gl/OplD59

This person was flying at 1000' and was unable to find a place to make a survivable emergency landing. I will go out on a limb and say, I am not a better pilot than he (RIP) was. What went wrong? Why is it not an absolute hair-on-fire emergency for us as airplane fans and pilots that this sort of incident was actually fatal, when it should have been a mere mush into a marsh? What am I missing?

If you drove a dirt bike or 4-wheeler into a marsh at 40mph, you would likely survive. What is so different about aircraft that makes this sort of accident routinely fatal?

Ihab

[ihab]

Fyi --

http://www.thekathrynreport.com/2014/10 ... earch.html

[fastj22]

Did you catch the part where that was his first solo flight in the Waiex? The plane got its airworthiness almost two years ago.