A private pressurized Calgary-based Beech Baron with a pilot and one passenger was on an IFR flight from Pueblo, CO to Santa Fe, NM when the aircraft entered an uncontrolled descent and Denver Center lost radar contact. The last radar contact was 37 NM on the 106 radial of the Alamosa VOR. The crew of another aircraft observed a fire on the ground in the Stonewall, CO area where the Baron went down in rugged mountainous terrain. A SAR helicopter from the U.S. Air Force located the wreckage on the side of the 13,723-foot Vermejo Peak, not far from the Colorado - New Mexico border. Both occupants received fatal injuries. NTSB is investigating. This aircraft was involved in an air turnback to Springbank on December 18 due to problems with the airspeed indicator and the altimeter (CADORS 2008C4391 refers).
The previous CADOR reads as:
A private Beech Baron departed Springbank at approximately 1800z on an IFR flight to Casper, WY and when the aircraft was about 40 NM southeast of YBW, the pilot indicated that he was experiencing incorrect airspeed measurements and also was having possible altimeter issues. Initially, the pilot turned back directly to the YYC VOR and subsequently returned to Springbank, landing safely at 1835z.
Does anybody know anything about this? The owner of the plane is listed as MaurOil International. A quick look at the company website shows that it's the president who flies it. It looks like we might have yet another sad and unfortunate case of company exec(s) getting killed in their own airplane. Whoever it was, my thoughts go out to those involved.
CALGARY — An Alberta energy industry consultant and his physician wife are presumed dead after their small aircraft crashed Saturday in the southern Colorado mountains, U.S. authorities said on Monday.
Friends and colleagues of Gerrit Maureau and Sheila Malm reacted with shock Monday to confirmation from U.S. authorities that Maureau's 58 Beechcraft Baron had crashed in the mountains of south Colorado.
Maureau and Malm were flying to New Mexico to spend Christmas with friends.
Weather has prevented searchers from reaching the wreckage scene, but after an aerial survey both were presumed dead, according to Sgt. James Chavez of the Costilla County Sheriff's office in Colorado.
"He has a love for adventure — it's the same thing that makes you the president of a company," said Maureau's longtime friend Michelle Dundas. "You strive for that sort of thing."
Maureau, 67, was a globe-trotting energy industry consultant, one of Calgary's leading experts on international petroleum exploration, who sold his technical and economic risk expertise everywhere from Oman, Algeria and Holland to the offshore drilling rigs of Atlantic Canada.
He set up several business programs at Memorial University in Newfoundland, and spent two years as president of the Calgary-based Canadian Petroleum Institute, a non-profit training organization, until it folded this spring.
Richard Gusella, CEO of Connacher Oil and Gas, tapped the multilingual Maureau three years ago to join him on the board of Petrolifera, a Latin American exploration company and producer. "He was one of the good guys — a gentle soul," said Gusella, saddened to hear about the accident that claimed the colleague he'd lunched with only a week ago.
Malm, 65, was a fixture in Alberta's medical community. Alongside her family practice in Calgary, Malm founded a low-risk maternity clinic staffed solely by female doctors in the 1980s.
She was an associate professor for several years with the University of Calgary's family medicine and bioethics departments, and served on the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta board, spending two years as its president in the 1990s.
"There are some people who wake up in the morning and just give all day," said Dr. Juliet Guichon, senior associate in the university's bioethics office. Malm had also been a doctor to her children.
"When she saw a patient, she worked hard to see the patient in a complex web of relationships, rather than seeing the patient as an isolated human. That's how you give better care."
She recently had begun flying lessons so she could co-pilot with Maureau, a friend of Malm's said.
After taking off Saturday from Calgary, the couple had safely landed in Pueblo, Colo., to refuel, spending about 30 minutes on the ground before taking off again for Santa Fe, N.M.
The Federal Aviation Administration lost contact with the Beechcraft Baron an hour later, just before 8 p.m.
"It was on the radar and then just disappeared," said agency spokesman Allen Kenitzer.
Early Sunday, two Blackhawk helicopters from a U.S. air force base surveyed the Culebra mountain range and spotted the wreckage a kilometre northwest of the 4,100-metre Vermejo Peak.
"There were absolutely no survivors," Chavez said.
The helicopters were unable to land because of high winds. A 12-member team of searchers from El Paso county got within three kilometres of the site by snowcat on Sunday and hiked another kilometre before they were turned back by the weather.
Another try on Monday was also unsuccessful.
"There's too much of a risk because of the slopes and avalanche danger. Basically, we're at the hands of Mother Nature," Chavez said.
Searchers will try again Tuesday.
Maureau was born in Venezuela to a geophysicist father and mother who was a company nurse for Shell, while Malm, 65, was a farm girl born in Vauxhall, Alta. They were married for more than 25 years. He had one daughter from a prior marriage.
Whoa....I was reading the CADORS the other night and read about the mentioned turn back to Sprinbank when he had errant Altitude and IAS readings. And now this. That is just awful I feel for their family.
FlightAware shows the aircraft at was cruising at 13,000' and the wreckage was found on the side of a 13,723 peak. With that kind of terrain in the area shouldn't they have been flying at a higher altitude? Looks like a clear case of CFIT to me.
Max_Power wrote:FlightAware shows the aircraft at was cruising at 13,000' and the wreckage was found on the side of a 13,723 peak. With that kind of terrain in the area shouldn't they have been flying at a higher altitude? Looks like a clear case of CFIT to me.
My condolences to their families.
If you read correctly Flightaware shows flight level 18,000' and the CADOR report says the aircraft entered an uncontrolled descent and Denver Center lost radar contact. This was not contolled flight into terrain. Unfortunately because of the terrain and weather it might be some time before we know what really happened.
