On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 01:22:19 GMT, "Crash Lander"
wrote:

I asked my instructor on the weekend what a pilot is expected to do, should
he come across a downed plane, or was in the vicinity on another plane that
was going down, or making a forced landing.
He said that you should tune to the relevant ATC frequency, and inform them...

As a matter of fact this happened to me, but there was no urgency.
This was around 30 years ago.

A student pilot took off cross country into bad weather (sleet and
freezing rain) from NY's Orange County Airport (MGJ), despite attempts
by others to talk him out of it. Since he owned his own plane nobody
could stop him. Apparently he was in town to finalize his divorce and
wanted to get home. The plane disappeared, prompting what was
described as the largest ground/air search in NY history, but nothing
was found.

About a week later I rented a Cherokee from Quade's Flight School at
MGJ (I recall being irked that the newspapers reported me as a
"student pilot") and took my father for a ride. Passing over a ridge,
I saw something I took for a patch of snow, but Dad asked me to circle
around, and sure enough, it was a plane, just below the crest of the
ridge. I called the airport's Unicom and asked the colors of the
missing plane. After some delay, we were able to confirm that this
was the plane and not an old wreck... I reported the position (VOR
radial where it crossed the ridge, no GPS back then) and headed back
to the airport.

Later investigation revealed that the pilot survived the crash but was
trapped in the wreckage with a broken leg. There was no post crash
fire; apparently he lit a fire to keep warm some time later... and
died of smoke inhalation. Judging from the direction he was going and
location where he hit, I surmise he had turned around and was heading
back... too late.

-Dana

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