Jet Aviation Casualties

An Piaggio Avanti P.180 with 2 crew and 5 passengers from Germany disappeared yesterday, the 21th of october from the radar scope on its flight from Palenque, Mexico to Puerto Limón in Costa Rica during the approach 25 NM prior touchdown. Search and Rescue attempts had to be stopped due to adverse weather. The wreckage has not been found jet.

The wreckage and several bodies was found on the water. The five German passengers were a well known business man from Germany and his complete family consisting of his partner and 3 children. The business man was Rainer Schaller, the founder and owner of the fitness club chain McFit with branches all over Europe and Turkey.

God have mercy on their souls.

Wow, horrible news, an entire family wiped out.
Was this a local charter flight, or a family owned airplane flown from Germany
with multiple stops?
R.I.P.

Must have been either the family owned or corporate owned aircraft, as it was flown single pilot with the pilot a swiss citizen. 6 POB, 1 pilot, 2 adult passengers, 3 children. Charter with single pilot and paying passengers is illegal under EASA rules.

I was wondering about this also. A Piaggio P.180 would not be the aircraft of my choice to cross the atlantic ocean with, especially at this time of the year. For the northern route via Island, Greenland and Labrador (island hopping) to much bad weather and for the southern route via Portugal and the Azores against the Trade Wind not enough range. If I remember correctly, with 6 POB plus baggage, the P.180 cannot be fully refuelled anymore.

The P.180 is a very fast jetprop aircraft, compared to a King Air or similar but one has to get used to it's flying characteristics. I had an one hour ride with the dealer demo pilot in it. When reducing the power abruptly to idle, the pitch down effect was very noticable until the canard flaps were lowered.

The aircraft was on initial approach at 2.000 ft ASL when it disappeared from the radar scope. I am just gessing, single pilot, high workload, long flying day, power reduction for the final configuration ..... It is very easy to get behind the aircraft in such situations.

As I fly my PC-12 and PC-24 still single pilot and even having over 10.000 flying hours, when starting the approach at the IAF, I still sit upright, tighten my seatbelts and get my act together, like it would be my first check-ride. And my PC-12 and 24 are much easier to fly than this Italian race horse.

And I would not squeeze my family in this cabin for some long flying days.

Update:

The P.180 Avanti was the private aircraft of Rainer Schaller. The persons on board were the swiss pilot, his personal assistant, his partner and her 2 children. The owner and his entourage were on a 5 weeks vacation trip via the northern route (island hopping) to central and southern America.

The Piaggio P.180 Avanti was ever an exotic aircraft. During it's 27 years of production only 220 aircraft were built. And the majority of aircraft were sold to government organisations like Air Forces, Navy, Police, Customs and Coast Guard. Also the aircraft was pretty fast (320 Kts max. level flight), it's price tag of 7,7 Mio Euros was prohibitive.

The most prominent owner of the P.180 Avanti in Germany was the Formula One driver Michael Schumacher.

The news are reporting the P.180 as a Charter Plane, but probably a common mistake:

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/feared-dead-small-plane-crash-off-costa-rica-91917262

I have flown to Costa Rica numerous times, lots of rain and thunderstorms at those Latitudes:
Bad weather was also reported during the afternoon of the 21st when the crash occurred.
Not sure if a private plane would have a Flight Data and a Cockpit Voice recorder,
if not, we may never know what happened.
(I did look up other P.180 Avanti accidents, seems like most were runway excursions, and a ferry flight low on fuel landed on the tundra in Greenland)

Landing gear problems were very common on early versions. The rather fragile landing gear was reinforced later and because of the narrow track always quite sensitive during crosswind takeoffs and landings.

No bird for everyday heavy duty operation. A Ferrari and no Mercedes. Faster, chicer but not really suitable for everyday use.



But as You wrote, the bad weather might have been a factor on this fatal accident.

That landing gear on the picture looks almost like an F-104 gear:

That's the way a retracting landing gear will look like, when the design dictates a gear into the fuselage solution. On the P.180 the wings are to far aft and to high to retract a straigt gear into it. Foward of the wing the cabin and in the rear the baggage compartement. The solution with a folding and turning landing gear under the main spar was obvious. And Piaggio new this type of gear, as they were involved in the licence production of the Italian F-104 S. Btw. this tie rod in front of the F-104 landing gear was also a major cause of gear trouble on the F-104. Chic and beautiful is often counterproductive with sturdy and solid. With it's 1.300 lbs full fuel payload the operation might have been bearly leagal with 6 POB plus baggage for a five weeks trip on board.

Below the private P.180 Avanti of Rainer Schaller. I am still wondering, why he was operating her single pilot on the other side of the pond. The wrong aircraft for such long range operation and too much flying hours for a single pilot operation as far as crew rest is concerned.



Note the owner initials in the aircrafts registration .

With the tight cabin and 2 children onboard, perhaps one of the pax was occupying the co-pilot's seat and even distracting the P.I.C...?
Speculation of course.

Here is another turbo prop with an F-104 type landing gear.

It just so happened that the F-104 was also manufactured in Japan, where this MU-2 was designed and built.
Kelly Johnson was a clever Swede and much copied.