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5xad0w OP t1_ja6ieqe wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Medical services plane crashed in Nevada, killing 5, after apparently breaking up mid-flight, NTSB says | CNN by 5xad0w

I'm hoping (relatively speaking) that it was catastrophic failure and not suicide.

The fact that radar showed it in a turn kind of makes me think it was mechanical. I'd assume with suicide you would just point the nose straight down or fly into a mountain.

Don't know what, if anything, was said over the radio but the turn may have even been started as an attempt to turn back when they realized something was wrong.

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Affectionate-Park-15 t1_ja6lchl wrote

Could have been icing on the wing. Pilot tried to correct unsuccessful. I used to fly as a medical crew in the PC12 and it’s a tough aircraft, but icing was always a concern.

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EmotionalSuportPenis t1_ja6zxck wrote

Icing should be pretty easily detectable in the PC-12, though, and I'm not sure Pilatus even sells any of them without ice control systems. Not to say it couldn't be a factor, but the pilots are trained and the planes are built to deal with it, and they tend to fly in icing conditions a lot.

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ilikemrrogers t1_jaee4gq wrote

I’m a former aviation meteorologist, and icing was my first thought. It would cause a nose-up AOA and eventual stall. Looking at the obs, there was a ceiling at 060 with light snow. Temps at the surface hovering around freezing. You can get a fast accumulation of clear ice in those conditions. You can also get induction freezing in the engines when they are revved up for climbing.

Combine a frozen engine, clear ice, and a sudden stall and spin, and it wouldn’t take much for something to break off.

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