Passenger falls out of private airplane flying above Biscayne Bay: report* - NY Daily News We dont assume anything, Petty Officer Mark Barney said of the persons chances of survival. Were treating it as a search and rescue operation and going from there. Sad, but indeed a recovery if they find the body. May have tried to close the door or been like the recent chopper incident. Suicide. Man who died after jumping from helicopter had medical issue - Los Angeles Times "It's the last thing I ever thought would happen to my son," Street said. "I've been flying for 35 years and I've logged over 27,000 hours, and it never happened to me."
According to this guy, with the door behind the wing. This one, the pilot jumped, but had a chute. Philip Greenspun's Weblog » Perfect plane for a faked suicide mission: Piper Malibu/Meridian
A bazillion paratroopers jumped out of C-47's without elevator (or paratrooper) damage... Same situation.
There was/is damage to the elevator. It has a dent in it and the skin is twisted. I have a similar PA46, a Meridian...main difference being I have turbine engine. It is fairly difficult to open that clam door in flight, particularly if the cabin was pressurized at the time. It is not something that happens by accident under any circumstance. If he was looking for the bathroom, he picked the wrong door.
He was only 1800 feet ASL... not much pressurization needed. Shoot, my house is 3000 feet higher than that and I leave the door open all the time...
Turning on the pressurization is a preflight checklist item. The pressurization system will attempt to keep the cabin at sea level. Even at 1,800', it's pressurized.
Yes, I know, but there's not a great air pressure differential at 1800' asl. Did you read Greenspun's blog in post 3 above? I've heard what he said before, but also heard it was BS... you obviously think that the Malibu/Meridian is a good airframe/engine.
I just read the blog following your recommendation to do so. I'm on my second PA46, first had a '08 Matrix, now a Meridian. The first PA46's from the early to mid-80's had a few issues, but most were related to the Piper factory throwing the newly minted owner the keys and wishing them a happy flight home. There was very little training, and the PA46 is a capable airplane...capable enough to get its uninformed pilots into trouble. When winter nears and most GA airplanes go into hibernation (read safety), FIKI equipped PA46's just keep on flying. Same goes for flights into the hostile flight levels. Capable airframes provide pilots more options to fly in questionable conditions, and when you couple that with inadequate training, the accident rate reflects it. The training has improved considerably over 30 years, aided by insurance requirements to do so, and the plane itself continues to improve. As for problems with engines and windshields and doors, I honestly have no idea what they are referring to. I fly at FL280 all day long behind my reliable Pratt & Whitney PT6 at 265 kts TAS...no complaints. Those are pretty good numbers for an entry level turboprop that sells for around $2M. Would I rather have a TBM850 and another 500 nm of range and another 30 kts of speed, not to mention a stronger airframe...yup. Its all a function of money. Speaking of which, I also think someone in the blog misquoted the price of the pilots side of the windshield. I believe they said $28k, but it is closer to $35k last time I looked Airplanes do make Ferrari's seem downright reasonably priced, don't they?
Legacy Flight Training has an excellent sim in Vero Beach, FL. Was just down there a few weeks ago. There are plenty of others as well.
