Ghost plane crashes near Marathon

[mosky]

Not much in the way of details other than it was a US registered rental 172 with what appears to be no one on board:

https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/ ... hon-564571

[Adam Oke]

That's some big news for Marathon!

I think the last big news was that Helio that tried to take off perpendicular to the runway into what was thought to be a headwind....but really is just the lee side of the hill adjacent the runway. Ended up smacking a fence and a light pole eventually resting in the ditch by the highway.

[7ECA]

Well now, that's strange... even for Marathon.

[Cliff Jumper]

What does this mean????... The occupants jumped?

[GyvAir]

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/news/pl ... 2a3cb.html

OPP said that the University of Michigan Police Department is investigating an associated missing person incident in relation to the White River plane crash.

[Inverted2]

Reminded me of the FedEx Caravan that flew out of YAM never to be found.

[pelmet]

Reminded me of the FedEx Caravan that flew out of YAM never to be found.

And particularly, a Cessna high wing at Smiths Falls about a couple of decades ago.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/unpiloted ... e-1.167270

[Canoehead]

Reminded me of the FedEx Caravan that flew out of YAM never to be found.

Careful Inverted2. Don't start asking questions or making any statements about that fight. It's still under investigation and we can expect a report in 4 more years, as long as the involved parties all agree on the findings.

[MrWings]

Reminded me of the FedEx Caravan that flew out of YAM never to be found.

That case still intrigues me. If they were both jumps, the difference is that the Caravan incident was perfectly planned.

The mistake in this Marathon incident is that the plane was found.

[pdw]

This 172 is "found" with hard evidence that it had been in flight with nobody in it where the other has the crash location at only the coordinates of some floating surface debris found soon after and with no verification of occupancy.

I see (the thinking behind the previous post) if this new incident is suggested a copycat while suspecting the other was a disappearing act, then the wreckage-discovery would be an error. It stretches the imagination a little much I'm afraid ...

[GyvAir]

I see (the thinking behind the previous post) if this new incident is suggested a copycat while suspecting the other was a disappearing act, then the wreckage-discovery would be an error. It stretches the imagination a little much I'm afraid ...

The Fedex Caravan story was the first thing I thought of when I read about this incident. I guess some of our imaginations are easily stretched.

There was another incident that came to mind, from a few years back that I was unsuccessful in finding online. It involved the owner somehow intentionally setting the aircraft up to take off on its own, then reporting it stolen in an attempt to collect insurance money. If I recall correctly, he pointed it seawards, with the intention of it disappearing, but it fell short and came down somewhere on land.

[MrWings]

It stretches the imagination a little much I'm afraid ...

There is a crashed plane with NO signs of a pilot.

I can't think of a rational explanation WITHOUT the use of an imagination!

[GyvAir]

I'd forgotten about this one:

On January 11, 2009, Schrenker departed in his turboprop single-engine Piper Meridian (tail number N428DC) from an airfield in Anderson, Indiana, scheduled to fly to Destin, Florida.[17] Near Birmingham, Alabama, he made a distress call, telling air traffic controllers that his windshield had imploded and he was "bleeding profusely."[18][19] He then set the plane to autopilot and parachuted out. Military jets that had been dispatched to intercept Schrenker's plane discovered it in flight, with its door open and cockpit empty.[19] They followed the plane until it crashed just north of Milton, Florida at about 9:20pm.[19][20] The plane had flown 200 miles (320 km) on autopilot and crashed 50 to 75 yards from a residential area.[18][20] Upon inspecting the crash site, investigators discovered that there was no blood inside the plane and the windshield showed no sign of problem.[19] On board the aircraft they found a United States atlas and a national campground directory, both of which had the Florida and Alabama sections torn out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Schrenker

[somefriend]

Now that people seem interested. How would you do if you were looking for the missing pilot(s)?

Appreciated.

[Canoehead]

I'd forgotten about this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Schrenker

Schrenker grew up in Merrillville, Indiana and attended Purdue University, where he was a cheerleader

Hopefully that tidbit didn't spread through the prison halls...

[pdw]

I'd forgotten about this one:

made a distress call, telling air traffic controllers that his windshield had imploded and he was "bleeding profusely."[18][19]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Schrenker

That ATC-directed statement is similar to the one from a pilot back in the nineties who disappeared after a 'birdstrike and windscreen implosion' was broadcast from near the burlington skyway .. never to be seen again. Wonder if that's where the idea came from ... yikes

[GyvAir]

And then there was this DB Cooper candidate:

Robert Wesley Rackstraw is a retired pilot and ex-convict who served on an Army helicopter crew and other units during the Vietnam War. He came to the attention of the Cooper task force in February 1978, after he was arrested in Iran and deported to the U.S. to face explosive possession and check kiting charges. Several months later, while released on bail, Rackstraw attempted to fake his own death by radioing a false mayday call and telling controllers that he was bailing out of a rented plane over Monterey Bay.[165] Police later arrested him in Fullerton on an additional charge of forging federal pilot licenses; the plane he claimed to have ditched was found, repainted, in a nearby hangar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper

[Diomedea]

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/ind ... ent_w.html

ANN ARBOR, MI - Police have identified a missing University of Michigan student who rented a small plane that crashed in Canada last week.

School of Information doctoral candidate Xin Rong, 27, was last seen on the morning of March 15, said Diane Brown, spokeswoman for the University of Michigan Division of Public Safety and Security.

He rented a plane from the Ann Arbor Municipal Airport the same day, and it's believed to have crashed late that night, about 11:38 p.m. in Ontario, Canada, about 37.3 miles east of the town of Marathon. Marathon appears to be about 463 miles northwest of Ann Arbor by air.

Officials do not believe Rong was aboard the plane at the time of the crash and university police believe his actions were likely an act of self-harm. Air and ground searches for him have since been suspended, Brown said.

[Sulako]

As far as the Caravan crash goes, I am of the opinion that the pilot is alive and well. I knew the guy and he made several statements about taking a plane up north and ditching it and living off the land. There's a lot more to the story on that one.

[TG]

As far as the Caravan crash goes, I am of the opinion that the pilot is alive and well. I knew the guy and he made several statements about taking a plane up north and ditching it and living off the land. There's a lot more to the story on that one.

Hopefully he went better prepared than this guy...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless

Christopher Johnson "Chris" McCandless (/ˈkrɪstəfər ˈdʒɒnsən məˈkændlᵻs/; February 12, 1968[1] – c. August 1992) was an American hiker and itinerant traveler, who also went by the name "Alexander Supertramp". After graduating from college in 1990, McCandless traveled the United States, and eventually hitchhiked to Alaska in April 1992. There, he set out along an old mining road known as the Stampede Trail, with minimal supplies, hoping to live simply off the land. Almost four months later, McCandless' decomposing body, weighing only 30 kilograms (66 lb), was found by hunters in a converted bus used as a backcountry shelter along the Stampede Trail, on the eastern bank of the Sushana River. His cause of death was officially ruled to be starvation