Famed test pilot missing in flight

[DemoTex]

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Authorities were searching early Thursday for a small plane registered to a famed test pilot that vanished from radar on Wednesday on a flight from Prattville, Alabama, to Manassas, Virginia.

Air traffic control last had contact with the plane registered to test pilot Scott Crossfield about 11 a.m. Wednesday when it was about 10 miles southwest of Ellijay, Georgia, about 60 miles north of Atlanta, an FAA spokeswoman told CNN.

The spokeswoman said she could not confirm who was aboard the single engine plane.

Crossfield, 84, was the first man to fly the X-15 rocket-powered jet and made aeronautical history in 1953 by becoming the first pilot to fly faster than Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound).

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/04/20/georgia.plane/index.html

Unfortunately, the weather in that area at that time yesterday looked very much like the weather in that area on April 4, 1977, when Southern Airways flight 242 (DC-9) crashed at New Hope, Georgia, after penetrating a severe thunderstorm and suffering a cracked windshield and a double engine failure. I even commented on that Southern crash in an email to a friend yesterday. I wrote " .. and it looks like the ATL arrivals over RMG (Rome, Ga, NW of ATL) are shut down for a while .. looks like it did when 242 bought the farm.".
I hope Crossfield is found alive and OK. However, yesterday was no day for any 84 year old, test pilot or not, to be out trying to get through that weather monster.

[Jacobin]

1. Damn. Doesn't sound good

I've always had a soft spot for those guys...Yeager, Crossfield, et al.

thunderstorms and planes don't mix well.

[Ezlivin]

2. Crossfield apparently didn't even have time to trigger the ELT

If the Emergency Locator Transmitter is not triggered, that means that things went awry too rapidly for Crossfield to react.

I hope he beats the odds, though.

[Jacobin]

4. Don't those things go off automatically

in the event of a crash?

[benburch]

26. Supposed to. But they don't always end up intact.

My Cousin was a nurse on a flying ambulance out west and they slammed into a mountain, and the ELT did not survive the wreck.

[Fovea]

29. OMG Ben did your cousin survive?

Sorry to hear about it, in either case.

[benburch]

30. No. All hands lost. nt

[trof]

5. Should activate on impact.

"G" switch, I think.

[Canuckistanian]

6. They're supposed to go off automatically

In case of any major damage to an airframe or complete loss of engine power or loss of control surfaces.

I used to work on these things. Yes, there's an emergency ELT switch, but it's only for use if you know you're going down and want to make sure it turns on properly.

[wtmusic]

3. Very odd

that he would even attempt it. You don't live to be 84, doing the things he did, by taking unnecessary chances.

[Jacobin]

9. He was probably trying to find a hole in the weather

Sometimes it works, sometimes.....

I remember being in a Cessna 421 flying from New Orleans to Lacrosse Wisconsin one spring day. Landed in St. Louis to refuel about 6:00 pm, took off and flew along a big bad front at 20,000 feet for about 80 miles looking for a hole. The pilot saw a hole and in we went. It started closing up and we rocked and rolled and were pummeled by rain and updrafts for about five minutes.

We were lucky the plane didn't break up.

[DemoTex]

11. That is what is known as a "sucker hole" ..

Been there, done that too.

[benburch]

22. Well we don't know what happened.

He could simply have died, at that age.

[BrotherBuzz]

7. The X-15 was the first test plane I was aware of

The X-1 was before my time and already history. The X-15, and I guess the X17, were cutting edge and pretty exciting in my youth. Hmmm, an 84 year old pilot in bum weather? Best we can do is chew a stick of Beeman's gum and and reflect on Crossfield's dreams of the sky, and hope.

[benburch]

8. For you, Scott

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941

[wtmusic]

You mean Reagan didn't write that?

:sarcasm:

[FlaGranny]

13. Reagan may not have written it,,

but he did have a way with words. Can you imagine GW trying to say that?

[0007]

27. Sounds very Raygun to me. Big war hero ya know!

[Frank Cannon]

14. One of my favorite poems of all time

And one of the few I've memorized.

When I was a kid, the only TV station in town used that poem to sign off every night.

[never cry wolf]

23. Not to make light of Crossfield's situation but

There was a short video that played at the end of the broadcast day on a TV channel in DeKalb called high flight featuring that poem. This was back in the 70's and we always got a great kick watching it in the dorms, stoned out of our gourds...

on edit: My respects to Scott, if he did auger in and buy the farm, I have no doubt he would have preferred being at the controls.

[benburch]

25. Doesn't make light of it at all.

Recollections of the past are fine at moments like this.

[RebelOne]

10. My sister lives up in Ellijay.

Quite a lot of hills and forested terrain. It could be quite difficult to find him.

[Norquist Nemesis]

12. Just caught this on the AP

His family is referring questions to the Civil Air Patrol. Is that normal procedure? :shrug: It's very strange.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MISSING_PLANE?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

[Bridget Burke]

15. His family probably has more pressing concerns than PR....

Let them do as they wish.

[benburch]

21. That is appropriate. nt

[Norquist Nemesis]

24. Thanks, Ben

The way I read it, it wasn't even clear that he is the pilot.

[saigon68]

16. Guess even at age 84 the adventure is in your blood

[MindPilot]

18. You bet, and assuming the worst, 'tis a far better exit than

a long suffering illness.

[DemoTex]

17. CNN just changed the headline: "Famed test pilot's plane missing"

I guess that is a better headline, semantically speaking.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/04/20/georgia.plane/index.html

[saigon68]

19. There's an airport about 4 nm south of the battlefield

[tonekat]

20. Was fortunate to meet him in the 80s....a very cool guy!

In the 80's, when my wife worked for the General Aviation Manufacturer's Association. I often got to go to events with her, and as I recall, this occasion was some dinner up on the hill. Spouse was busy doing her thing, the usual stiff industry types were there, and somehow I got to sit with Scott. I knew who he was, and even though I was just some total nobody, new to DC and all, not even in "the biz", he kept up a lively round of conversation with me, and was totally genuine about it. I'll never forget that.

Guy stays in great shape too!

Hope he's OK.

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. Legendary U.S. Test Pilot Killed

(CBS/AP) Legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield, the first man to fly at twice the speed of sound, was found dead Thursday in the wreckage of a single-engine plane in the mountains of northern Georgia, his son-in-law said.

Searchers discovered the wreckage of a small plane about 50 miles northwest of Atlanta, but the Civil Air Patrol didn't immediately identify the body inside.

Ed Fleming, Crossfield's son-in-law, told The Associated Press from Crossfield's home in Herndon, Va., that family had been told it was Crossfield.

Crossfield's Cessna was last spotted in the same area on Wednesday while on flight from Alabama to northern Virginia. There were thunderstorms in the area when officials lost radar and radio contact with the plane at 11:15 a.m., said Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/20/national/main1522769.shtml