Do you remember Payne Stewart?

[jmowreader]

Payne Stewart was a professional golfer who died aboard his personal airplane, a Learjet. The plane lost cabin pressure and just kept on flying until it ran out of fuel...at which point it just fell out of the sky.

Now that we have reports the plane transmitted engine-health data to Rolls Royce four hours after its last known transmission, could this plane have suffered the same fate as Payne Stewart's?

[madaboutharry]

1. If that was the case, the radar wouldn't

have been turned off. Someone on the plane would have had to turn it off.

[Orrex]

15. Side note: it baffles me that that's even an option

What possible reason would a civilian jet have to switch of its radar or its transponders?

[JI7]

2. but shouldn't it send out other signals that people have mentioned ?

[uppityperson]

3. It will be quite interesting once they find it and figure it all out.

for some reason, could be that it is late at night, "they were raptured" went through my mind in an unserious way, while hoping they find it soon.

[Tikki]

4. Weren't military jets scrambled to track him and they did?

I have always wondered why military jets aren't always scrambled when terrorists are in airspace.


Tikki

[jmowreader]

9. In the US, if your plane leaves its flight plan, the Air Force goes up to look

At least they do when they haven't been stood down.

[edbermac]

5. Yes I brought that up in a post.

Maybe there was a problem which led them to turning on the autopilot, then the crew was incapacitated and the jet just flew on until the fuel ran out.

I don't know if that's the case here, this story just gets stranger by the day.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4648480

[hfojvt]

6. I try to remember Stephanie

and others on the plane too. It annoyed me at the time that the media acted like Payne was the only person who died that day, in that incident.

I found this to be interesting, and sad http://james-a-watkins.hubpages.com/hub/Payne-Stewart-Plane-Crash

[Jenoch]

7. Your're pretty funny.

The 1999 South Dakota Learjet crash was about the occupants of a general aviation aircraft. They were victims of hypoxia and died. That was the end of the investigation.

[jmowreader]

11. They were victims of hypoxia because their plane lost cabin pressure

If this 777 had lost cabin pressure, wouldn't the same thing happen to it? Boeing puts a nice autopilot in the 777; once you turn it on it will take the plane exactly where you tell it to...and if you're fucking DEAD because there's no air in the plane, you can't tell it to turn.

[Jenoch]

12. Your reply is a result of an airliner

with cabin pressure, sonmething few experts have proclaimed.

[Cha]

8. His name sounded familiar and as soon

you said it.. I remembered. That was awfull.

[Warpy]

10. I certainly do.

A scenario like that certainly isn't out of the question, nor is a catastrophic fire in the electrical system that produced little smoke but shut down the whole system.

It's just odd that there wasn't a final radio message, even if it was static. Whatever happened, it happened too fast for a pilot or copilot to toggle a switch.

My condolences to the families, though. It has to be hell not to know what happened.

[AngryAmish]

13. They keep his locker at Kemper

Glassed it off. Some old school footjoys with nails, plus fours, Bears shirt and hat.

Only person to get on number 7 at Butler when the fairways were seperated and the cottonwoods were still inside the dogleg. He did it with 2 2 irons. Yikes!

[MerryBlooms]

14. Malaysia says report missing plane kept flying 4 hours after contact wrong

Acting Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein was referring to reports that the Rolls Royce engines aboard the Boeing 777 automatically sent data to the engine manufacturer as part of a maintenance program.

The Wall Street Journal said U.S. officials suspect the plane continued flying for four hours after its last contact, based on data from the engines.

Hishammuddin said Thursday that both Rolls Royce and Boeing said that report was wrong.

More:
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/national_world&id=9464686