piper pa32 crashed last night near kananaskis village

[oldncold]

Cbc calgary news Reports piper32 crashed last nite after departing springbank earlier that evening (cybw) plane went down near kananaskis villige.100KM WEST OF CALGARY

Number of people were on the aircraft . At this point no reported survivors tsb is on scene . No mention of weather conditions ,pilot experience level ,/currency at nite . Tragic loss, condolences to families n friends
www.cbcnews.ca

[flyndad]

That is sad, certainly not great weather in the Calgary region last night.

[Skythings]

I live 26 nm to the east of the Kananaskis Village in the Jumping Pound area. About 8 nm to the SW of YBW. I was outside last evening with my dogs and I recall the weather was light rain with low cloud. I have a camera on my roof pointed west-southwest. I just checked my cam footage for 2100 hrs last evening. The mountains were completely obscured in low clouds which is what I recalled. See the attached top picture showing July 28 at 2100 hrs which was approximately their time of departure from YBW. The bottom picture shows a normal clear day from the same camera. On my cam footage the weather got worse after 2100hrs.

There was a heavy rain three hours earlier and then a period of some breaking clouds with some blue skies visible but the mountains were obscured all evening. The clouds were quite low at approximately 500 ft AGL and were moving in from the south east towards the rising terrain of the foothills and mountains. As the temps dropped the clouds became solid overcast again at 500 ft AGL with light rain at approximately 2000 hrs . Textbook upslope conditions. This morning there was heavy fog with 1/4 mile visibility here.

[flyndad]

That aircraft took off at 2045 with 6 aboard and apparently was flying to Salmon Arm, as shown above the weather was definitely not great along with end of daylight soon after.

[truecolours]

They sure don't teach decision making like they used to: Departing at 9pm. Marginal weather. Mountainous terrain. Single engine.

There are enough flags there to put 6 flags to shame.

[Bede]

I was in YYC last night. The weather was garbage. 800' ceiling if I recall.

[pelmet]

They sure don't teach decision making like they used to: Departing at 9pm. Marginal weather. Mountainous terrain. Single engine.

There are enough flags there to put 6 flags to shame.

Yup.....even if this was caused by something other than weather....another dangerous pilot. Sadly, there seems to be plenty of them in Genav.

[CaptDukeNukem]

They sure don't teach decision making like they used to: Departing at 9pm. Marginal weather. Mountainous terrain. Single engine.

There are enough flags there to put 6 flags to shame.

I’m with you on this one. Sadly, people lost their lives. But flying at night, in marginal weather, in mountainous terrain, in a piston single…

As mentioned above, no idea on the pilots qualifications, experience etc… but sometimes you have to just say no.

[flyndad]

As much as I feel for all concerned in this tragic loss I particularly feel for the passengers who were probably oblivious to the danger involved.

[‘Bob’]

It’s less than a six hour drive from Calgary to Salmon Arm. What was so important that they had to be there that much sooner? Probably not even that much sooner giving the time it takes to drive to the airport and preflight the plane and get a ride at the other end, cross loading luggage each time.

Unfortunately this is too common in general aviation. Their aircraft and the fact that they are a pilot is a point of pride. The PA-32 often comes up as a “mission” aircraft. Private pilots talking about their “mission”. And like the successful small business this individual likely ran.. nothing is going to stand in their way.

If I can say no in a two-crew multi engine turbine aircraft with weather radar and known icing capabilities.. how much more so should someone be able to say no in a piston single.

[kgb531]

Not sure if successful businessman or not. Apparently was some kind of church flight. So perhaps a "mission"ary flight.

It’s less than a six hour drive from Calgary to Salmon Arm. What was so important that they had to be there that much sooner? Probably not even that much sooner giving the time it takes to drive to the airport and preflight the plane and get a ride at the other end, cross loading luggage each time.

Unfortunately this is too common in general aviation. Their aircraft and the fact that they are a pilot is a point of pride. The PA-32 often comes up as a “mission” aircraft. Private pilots talking about their “mission”. And like the successful small business this individual likely ran.. nothing is going to stand in their way.

If I can say no in a two-crew multi engine turbine aircraft with weather radar and known icing capabilities.. how much more so should someone be able to say no in a piston single.

[pdw]

If I can say no in a two-crew multi engine turbine aircraft with weather radar and known icing capabilities.. how much more so should someone be able to say no in a piston single.

You said “no” on this particular evening from Calgary ?

(Edit: Calgary pax surely “oblivious” to “dangerous” esp if true that sun came out early evening in Calgary)

[Donald]

If the 5 passengers were all adults, that would be pretty heavy for a PA32. The one I flew could carry 1,000 lbs if you had 3 hours fuel, which would be about minimum fuel for this trip.

Then again, doesn't matter how overweight you are, if you drive it straight into a mountain.

[flyinhigh]

I was actually hiking an adjacent mountain on the way to heart falls on the night in question, and there is no way anyone should have been flying in those conditions, let alone at that time of night.

If I can figure out how to post a pic I will do so. Clouds covered all the tops that day.

[digits_]

Were they IFR or VFR?

And like the successful small business this individual likely ran.. nothing is going to stand in their way.

Jumping to conclusions much?

[albertdesalvo]

If I can figure out how to post a pic I will do so.

Go to pixhost.to and upload your photo(s)
When the upload is finished, pixhost will show you some links
Click the "forum" link and copy it to your clipboard
Come back to Avcanada and paste the link from your clipboard into a message
Easy, eh?

[SeptRepair]

Young man leaves behind an expecting wife. He has only owned the aircraft since June. I feel for the families of all involved. https://www.gofundme.com/f/willard-kirk-mealey

[rookiepilot]

Were they IFR or VFR?

And like the successful small business this individual likely ran.. nothing is going to stand in their way.

Jumping to conclusions much?

Fully allowed here. On GA accidents anyway.

[cncpc]

C-FCCY. A Lance.

Didn't show up on FlightAware for this flight.

[Flight94]

I found the sale ad for that aircraft, formerly N716CM. Looks like it is/was a reasonably equipped IFR machine. Useful load stated as 1332lbs. If he filed IFR, 2hr flight to Salmon Arm, 15gph (at least), with an alternate and reserves they would have to be 6 pretty small guys to be legal weight. If he was going VFR, well....

Speculation aside, terribly tragic for those involved, and a sobering reminder for the rest of us.

[pelmet]

From the TSB....

C-FCCY, a Piper PA-32R, was conducting a VFR flight from Springbank Airport (CYBW), AB to
Salmon Arm (CZAM), BC with 1 pilot and 5 passengers on board. The aircraft departed CYBW at
2047 MDT on 28 July 2023 and was reported overdue early the following morning. A strong ELT
signal was heard by overflying aircraft in the vicinity of Bow Valley Provincial Park, Kananaskis,
AB. Search and rescue assets located the aircraft on the east slope of Mt. McGillivray, AB on 29
July. All 6 occupants were fatally injured and the aircraft was destroyed; there was a post impact
fire.

[Squaretail]

Young man leaves behind an expecting wife. He has only owned the aircraft since June. I feel for the families of all involved. https://www.gofundme.com/f/willard-kirk-mealey

Young guy. Hard to imagine he had a ton of experience. You'd think with wife expecting it would change your risk assessment parameters.

The Lance is a pig fully loaded. The retractable gear's weight trades better cruise speed for a worse climb profile.

While people like to speculate that PPL training has poor decision making training, The small time one spends on the PPL isn't enough to change a person's accrued lifetime of decision making tendencies.

[oldncold]

Have a rule westbound thru canadjan rockies to west coast land 2 hours before legal dark. Eastbound. Clear the rockies 1 hour before legal dark. . For single engine vfr. Will save yur butt some day. been doing it that way for 35 years .

[flyndad]

One of my biggest frustrations training new Pilots is Pilot decision making skills, in particular when they are close to flight test standards. You can pretty much teach anyone the Air exercises but the decision making skills a different thing.
I see it was a VFR flight and as I had previously pointed out the weather on Friday was not even good enough for the circuit and yet here we have a fully loaded aircraft heading into the Mountains approaching night time. All the experience in the world would probably not have prevented this accident after the flight had departed, the experience needed to with the PDM skills before start up. Condolences to the families.

[pdw]

usefull load stated as 1332lbs

Then only 1333lbs or more could make “dangerous” here officially ? when everything else is actually legal?

Edited
(Sounds like “VFR” allows a 20 percent reduced minimum fuel load, if subtracting the ‘alternate’ fuel requirement avoiding an IFR flight plan.)