Grimwalt & Pterolet
I’ve got a lead that a private jet vanished in bad weather—no wreckage, no signal. Thought you might have a sense of the flight path and the kind of mechanical quirks that could cause a whole mystery. You wanna see the data?
Send the flight plan and last known telemetry over, and I’ll trace the path. In severe weather a jet can hit a sudden wind shear that overloads the wings, or a pitot tube could freeze and give false airspeed. A compressor stall in a single engine can snowball into a total loss if the pilot doesn’t react fast enough. If there’s a failure of the pressurization system, the crew could lose consciousness. Give me the data, and I’ll pinpoint what went wrong.
Sure thing. The flight departed New York JFK at 14:23 UTC, heading to Dallas‑Love at 15:12 UTC. Last known coordinates: 30°25′N, 97°36′W, altitude 36,000 ft, airspeed 470 kt. The last telemetry packet sent at 15:48 UTC shows a sudden drop in airspeed to 300 kt, a rise in vertical speed of +1200 ft/min, and a pressure differential error on the left engine pitot tube. That’s the raw data I can send over.
The flight was on a straight‑line, high‑speed approach. The last packet shows a pitot fault on the left engine, so the indicated airspeed was wrong. The plane was probably still at the same true speed, but the crew saw 300 kt and tried to climb, which would trigger a compressor stall or even a spin if the center of gravity was bad. In those temperatures the left engine could have suffered a flameout, and the sudden climb could have put the wing at the limit of lift. The loss of pressure on that pitot tube is a classic cause of a false airspeed that can trigger a loss of control. In short, a pitot error, possible engine flameout, and a wind shear or downdraft could combine to wipe out the aircraft without any debris left.
Sounds like a textbook pitot‑tube nightmare. If you can pin down the exact timing of the freeze‑over, we can see if the crew got a false airspeed fast enough to trigger that climb. Also check the pressure readings on the right engine; if it was lagging, that could be the real fault line. Let me know what the cockpit voice recorder says, and we’ll nail the cause.
We need the exact instant the pitot froze, the right engine’s manifold pressure, and the voice recorder for the crew’s reaction. If the right engine pressure lagged, it was a double engine fault. The crew could have pulled the throttle and then flaps up too early— that would have pulled the wing into a stall before they could correct. With the timing data we can nail the sequence and find the real cause.
The pitot froze at 15:48:02 UTC, the right engine’s manifold pressure read 11.2 psi at that exact instant, and the cockpit voice recorder logs the crew saying “Throttle back, throttle back” around 15:48:03. They started flaps up at 15:48:05, just before the stall. That should line up the sequence.