www.brantly.info

Yesterday I had planned a flight from my location near Pittsburgh, PA over to University Park, at State College, PA, with my son for his birthday present. We would stop at a dozen airports during the flight to & from UNV, where we would have lunch. About 15 minutes past Indiana County / Jimmy Stewart Field (IDI) the overcast weather continued to deteriorate, and we were soon down to about 1 mile visibility and about 400' altitude. I then noticed moisture on the nose of the bubble and it was freezing. We did a 180 turn and headed back to Indiana County. From there we topped the fuel off and headed north west to Venango (FKL) where I knew there was a nice restaurant and better weather. Ended up being a decent 2.5 hour flight.

This morning I heard that there was a plane crash at University Park, our initial destination, that killed all 6 people on board. They suspect icing was the cause, as emergency personnel had been activated two other times yesterday at that airport due to icing reports from pilots.

Guys, pay attention to what's going on while you're flying. Is it really that important to get to a destination to risk your life and others by flying through weather like this? I'm not judging this pilot or his decisions, as I certainly don't know all the details. Just be aware of the conditions you are in. If icing is forming on your bubble, it is very likely forming on your rotors (wings) as well.

Since I don't know how long the story will remain an available page on the original source link, I've saved the story and pictures so they can be viewed from here. All copyrights belong to CentreDaily.com or others as defined by them and/or the story.

Here's the link directly to the to the story on their web site. I don't know how long it will be active.
Story Link

Here's a link to a copy of the story, in PDF format.
PDF Format

Here are the published pictures from the crash scene.

Condolences to that pilot and the passengers. Outstanding ADM (Aeronautical Decision Making)! Too many of us ignore warning signs because we have passengers in the aircraft. Good lesson and thanks for sharing!

ADM is actually one of the topics I've been studying lately for the CFI written test. Perhaps that, along with a little situational awareness and common sense helped with my decision to turn around. The plane crashed not long after I was scheduled to arrive at UNV, had I continued on and was able to complete the flight.

Here's today's update to the story. The first link goes directly to the actual story.

This link goes to a PDF Copy.

Yes, this is a sad event. While icing may have been a factor in this accident, it should have not brought this plane down. This plane is certified for flight into known icing conditions and has the proper ice-removal tools. I will not even try to explain why it crashed, but unless they ran into severe freezing rain (let's say 1 inch per 2 minutes) they should have been able to handle the ice.
Now, for small helicopters - STAY OUT OF ICING NO MATTER WHAT! If you have to land in a Wal-Mart parking lot downtown, so be it. Having ice on you "wings" in a Brantly B2B (or any helicopter for that matter) is asking for trouble. The nice thing is that you can land at any time if you absolutely have to. I would rather test the local law with me landing without permission then test the law of mother nature and physics.