I'm not sure what happened, but someone took off from KGKT yesterday and flew into bluff mountain. All survived with minor injuries, thankfully. I'm surprised, because there really isn't a good place to put down up there. I'll be curious to hear if they were IFR or VFR. It definitely didn't look like a good day for VFR, but if they were IFR, they must have been way off course.

http://themountainpress.com/pages/full_story/push?article--Small+plane+crashes+on+Bluff+Mountain-%20&id=20640911&instance=main_article_top_stories

Small plane crashes on Bluff Mountain
by GAIL CRUTCHFIELD
18 hrs ago | 0 | 10 | |


BLUFF MOUNTAIN — Five people escaped serious injury Sunday when their plane crashed around 2:45 p.m., on Bluff Mountain in the western portion of the county. Sevier County Sheriff Ron Seals confirmed the crash and said while four of the five were transported to area hospitals, they received only minor injuries.

Seals said they received information about the crash from McGhee-Tyson Airport. Area residents also called for help when the passengers of the plane — who were all from Florida, Seals said — were able to walk to a nearby home on East End Road and Top Road. Two of the injured were minors.

The airplane reportedly took off from Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge Aiport en route to Titusville, Fla. It apparently lost contact with McGhee-Tyson — the monitoring airport — and then received terrain warning signals just before passengers saw the tops of homes and trees, according to reports from the scene. The plane struck trees and electrical wires, landing upside down and catching fire. The passengers escaped the wreckage and walked first to one home where no one answered and then to another where the residents called for help.

Waldens Creek and Wears Valley volunteer fire departments fought the blaze resulting from the crash. Seals said members of the Sevier County Civil Air Patrol would watch over the scene until officials with the Federal Aviation Administration arrived to take over, most likely today.

Curt Habraken submitted to this report.



Read more: The Mountain Press - Small plane crashes on Bluff Mountain

Ironically, I took a few pics of this mountain while I was out flying last week The houses in these pics are on east end road:

Wow! Crashed, burned, and all walked away. Amazing.

That's what I thought. If you crash into the side of a 2,300 foot hill and your biggest issue is finding a how where someone is home, I'd say you got lucky.

Glad they all walked away.

phorine,

That is some beautiful country.......if you hit a hill in my area it would have to be a highway overpass.

Hoe leee crap:

rooftops...
trees...
electric wires...
upside down...
FIRE...
and maybe strangest of all, five people from Florida walking into your house...

Unbelievable. Glad everyone made it. Hollywood couldn't have scripted that one. It would have been too fake. Has anything more exciting ever happened on East End Road??

YB

After all, they are from Fla. and maybe don't understand the 'mountain' concept.....
Sorta like Sigg mentioned about large parts of Texas terrain.

lc

maybe don't understand the 'mountain' concept

There is a lot of aluminum litter in the Colorado & Wyoming mountains, caused by flatbillies who have the same conceptual deficits. Many times, if you draw a straight line from where they started to where they had planned to go, you will find that the remnants of their airplanes are at the first piece of tall real estate along the way.

Cary

Cary wrote:conceptual deficits

Love it!

Yellowbelly wrote:Has anything more exciting ever happened on East End Road??

YB

Doubtful!

I do love that area. The road up the mountain is a dead end, so it's pretty desolate. There's a spot where you can pull off the road (helps if your on a moto) and see pretty much to KY. There is also a sweet fire tower up there. It has signs forbidding you to climbs it, so I *obviously* have never done it. I imagine the view is pretty amazing

Sig220 wrote:That is some beautiful country.......if you hit a hill in my area it would have to be a highway overpass.

It is pretty up here. You should come up sometime. East TN and western NC is pretty much all lake or mountain. Those houses in the pics have some amazing views. On a clear day, they can see pretty much from the Great Smoky Mountains national Park to southern KY. That's as good as it gets around these parts.

Re: The Great Rockey Mountains
The story I heard was when the first pioneers found the Rocky Mountains, they sent word to their kinfolk back east that "Come on out. There is so much land out here they have to stack it."....
Of course the trappers/mountain men that proceeded the pioneers loved the west the way it was and most kinda kept mum about its wonders.

All hearsay...
lc

quote]Many times, if you draw a straight line from where they started to where they had planned to go, you will find that the remnants of their airplanes are at the first piece of tall real estate along the way.[/quote]

That is basically what happened to the C-172 that crashed in the owyhee Mountains last memorial day weekend. They went "GPS Direct" from Rome State to Mountain Home, and Cinnabar Mountain at 8,600 feet (plus the radio towers) was directly in the way.

That makes a lot of sense. Bluff Mountain is only about 7-8 miles from the end of the runway, and while it's definitely not on the runway center line, it's probably only 30 degrees off. If you took off and blindly followed the magic box, you could definitely get in trouble.

NTSB preliminary report.

http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief ... 1406&key=1

NTSB " Subsequently the GPS provided an obstacle warning and then a rooftop was observed in the clouds. He pitched up and banked the airplane, in order to clear the rooftop and the now visible trees. However, the underside of the airplane impacted several trees prior to the airplane coming to rest inverted in a tree about 15 feet above ground level. A postimpact fire began and the occupants exited the airplane."

Un friggin believable........ Those guys need to buy lottery tickets.... SOON !!!

Wow. That is insane. Talk about lucky.

I drove around up there the other day, but I didn't see the crash site, not surprising, because there is a whole lot of hill that isn't road accessible. I can definitely verify that the woods look just as thick and foreboding from the ground as they do from the air.