The idea of a flight came when I was informed by CAP that they had no idea where to look. The search grid had expanded to nearly 2400 square miles and CAP even heeded the input of a psychic. So if no idea of where to search was the problem, a simple "rough flight" plan could have potentially narrowed down the search grid. 2400 square miles is a huge area to search for. Had a flight plan been filed efforts could have been concentrated to that path. The location of the crash was not a horrible one, it was not well hidden in fact there was a road not far. It was not dense wood or a craggy mountain top on the side of a huge mountain. Had a flight plan been filed it would have helped. Is it the only solution, no it isn't and SAR has not met the business side of me yet, but they will. I am simply searching for solutions. As for the FSS calling and pestering people about closing flight plans, well it should have been closed when arrival was complete, again responsibility. I hope that my post do not come across as being aggressive or spiteful. That is not my intent, my desire is to learn and from everyones opinions here I can figure out which way to proceed. I appreciate all the support and all the answers. I have an open mind and a genuine interest to learn.

RanchPilot wrote:

Oregon180 wrote:To be honest, VFR flight plans are really an extremely lousy way to try to find someone. It's akin to telling SAR which haystack to look for the needle in at best. They wouldn't even know that there was a needle to look for for several hours.

Flight plans only tell SAR which haystack the needle thought it was going to be in before being forced to divert for weather or terrain, or just diverting by choice (the reason a lot of us fly in the first place). Since many crashes occur as a result of weather (bad weather, hot weather, wind conditions, etc.), the situation where the flight plan is the most "needed" (i.e, where a plane has crashed) is often the situation where the flight plan is the least helpful because the pilot has diverted from the originally planned route due to the same conditions which ultimately cause the crash.

Exactly you gotta realize this.... I also don't think flight plans would ever become a requirement/law. AOPA, EAA, and a lot of others would fight it, along with all the pilots.

Focus on the SAR/PLB/ELT aspect and maybe that'll be the saving grace for someone in the future.

I'm sorry you had to go through this tragedy, I can't imagine how I would feel if it was my daughter.

Meridith Johnson, Meyer's sister, spoke with KSL News in Salt Lake City on Tuesday.

"I got a text message from her at 11:30 in the morning saying they were stopping in Fillmore, Utah, to fuel up," Johnson told KSL News.

Then, "at about 11:58, she sent another text saying they were back in the air and they would be back in three to four hours, and that's the last thing we've heard from them," Johnson told the teleivison station.

Telling someone your route and communicating with them along the way will narrow your location more so than a filed flight plan would.
If CAP had this information and didn't act on it, you should be on a man hunt!

If you go back to the original thread of the lost plane there is a member here that called the location of the accident, but wouldn't have been allowed to participate in the search.

It appears that a flight plan would not have helped in this case and your efforts would be better served to change the way CAP responds.

Again, my condolences to you and your family.

See I think I am figuring out the problem. I am the family member that was not allowed to participate in the search. So from a majority of the opinions on this board, many do not want to file flight plans, the restrictions are too much and the freedom is limited, is this correct?. So to this answer I have a question. Again I am not trying to start a conflict I am just trying to understand. Most have issues with the ego of CAP, I agree, so by fighting against something so simple is not the AOPA displaying the very same ego? Therein lies the problem

I think your being awesome about it mark. No offense taken whatsoever. Very hard to put expression or emotion in text. I know how you feel on that. I was suspecting the flight plan idea came about as such. Lends to an excuse and something to feed to a non pilot. Makes sense in the simple terms of things. Especially if unfamiliar with the aspects of it. Gives you a rabbit to chase and hopefully a monkey off they're back.. And I hope none of writings find offense with you as well. If we were talking in person you would know my heart. Taking advice from cap on how to fix the problem is about like asking Marlboro how to not get lung cancer. If there where a flight plan and the results where the same( which is common). Then where would the finger point? What other options would be on the table? Look beyond the band aid mark. Take care buddy. And if there's anything you need on a personal level at all please let me know.

VFR flight plans when called in to Lockheed Martin flight service cannot include things as important as GPS waypoints from charts or even specific gps coordinates. We've already pointed out the commonplace deviations but even if we wanted to give a detailed plan it is not possible. Frankly these days even a call for a weather briefing is not as valuable as what you can get from your iPad or garmin w xm weather.

It's not about an us vs them. It's about facts and what works and what doesn't. No ego involved. They've got that covered. If you look through some threads here. Lots of pilots w families have stated that if they go missing. Please don't call cap. Please organize a private sar attempt. That's not ego. That's experience. Seeing what works and what fails. Repeatedly.

ShysDad wrote:So from a majority of the opinions on this board, many do not want to file flight plans, the restrictions are too much and the freedom is limited, is this correct? <....> so by fighting against something so simple is not the AOPA displaying the very same ego? Therein lies the problem

Therein does not lie the problem. You're asking the opinions of experienced pilots who've been operating in this system for many years, and they're all pretty much unanimously telling you that flight plans are not the answer, due to their ineffectiveness as a tool to locate aircraft. The AOPA is made up of experienced pilots too and will lobby against an impractical regulation that has the potential to 1) provide inaccurate or misleading information, 2) increase workload and cost of FAA services fruitlessly, and 3) become a cry-wolf type situation where pilots who only file flight plans because they're forced to are causing unnecessary searches to start.

The flight plan is a relic of a time before satellites. Locator beacon technology combined with simple briefing of family/friends about what to expect is the most effective AND cost-effective approach. If you don't have any family or friend? Sure go ahead an use the voluntary FSS flight plan in lieu of.

I am asking the opinions of experienced pilots because I put tremendous value on them. I don't want my posts to be taken any other way. I am just new to this whole thing and I don't want to offend anyone.

Grass Roots. Produce a PDF flier and I will personally post one in every airport shitter and bulletin board I visit for the rest of my life. Promise. 10-20 of us cover a lot of ground. Imagine what a national campaign with aopa, eaa would produce with their reach.

soyAnarchisto wrote:VFR flight plans when called in to Lockheed Martin flight service cannot include things as important as GPS waypoints from charts or even specific gps coordinates.

Yes, they can.

It's not that we don't want to file them it's that they are impractical a lot of the time!

Imagine this. You want to drive from Rawlins to Evanston, WY. And you decide, hey today i'm going to file a flight plan! So you file a flight plane. This is the info it tells them...

Departing: Rawlins Destination:Evanston License plate number: gobears1 ETA: 15:00 Miles able to drive:500 Route of drive: I 80 Direct------> (which would make sense, I'm going direct on the highway, or I am going direct from A to B in the plane) Car color: Pink with dots

Awesome they have all the info they need! Now lets start driving start driving...
oh man there is an accident (bad weather) right off the bat, so you decide well I can't take 80, so I better take 287 to Lander then i'll head southwest on 28 then eventually join HWY 189 to evanston. Perfect! The drive (flight) is going great then suddenly as you get near lander you hit a dear run off the highway down a small hill and into the bushes (the plane has an accident). You're stuck in the car but alive. You filed a flight plan though! So you'll be good and they will come and rescue you, everything is gonna be okay.

But wait! You put down that you'd planned to go Direct on I80... SAR focuses on I80 for days, and after a week they call off the search. The lack of food and water gets to you and you pass on.

You filed a flight plan, you should have been good right? Well the fact is that flight plans do just what others have said. They give SAR a needle in a haystack, or a state. They look in the path you planned, not what you flew.

Now lets change things around a little bit. This time you depart, haven't filed a flight plan but you have with you a PBL and you have a SPOT that you're friends on BCP like watching, because it's something to do while they are at work, not working! You run off the road and while you are stuck in the car, you reach into the glovebox and you hit the SOS button on your SPOT and you hit the 911 button on your PLB. Emergency services are there within minutes to save you. While the first guy, despite filing a flight plan, didn't make it.

Hopefully this makes the point we are trying to say. I support fixing SAR or encouraging ELT's but flight plans are not the solution.

Respectfully,
Bryan

rw2 wrote:
Yes, they can.

The last briefer I spoke with wouldn't take one for a Vfr plan. Maybe they can but the briefer knew not how to take it - the result was the same. It was the last plan I intend to file. Over a year ago.

BTW I have no problem filing. But from foreflight only and don't intend to open or close. Spending 20 minutes on the phone is a complete waste of time.

Thank you Bryan that does make sense to me. That is a very interesting point. The thing about the flight plan is if you do not arrive on time, isn't the search initiated earlier?....THe plane burned so had the search began earlier they may have seen the blaze making location easier. The PLB argument is correct though, these should be required or at the very least encouraged. I agree though I am going to try and find ways to promote the new ELT and PLB's these would have definitely made a difference. Would these still work even though there was no cell phone reception where they crashed?

soyAnarchisto wrote:

rw2 wrote:
Yes, they can.

The last briefer I spoke with wouldn't take one for a Vfr plan. Maybe they can but the briefer knew not how to take it - the result was the same. It was the last plan I intend to file. Over a year ago.

BTW I have no problem filing. But from foreflight only and don't intend to open or close. Spending 20 minutes on the phone is a complete waste of time.

Yeah, I thought they could take it, but when you said they couldn't I called and verified.

I'm with you on filing. I can't remember that last flight I did that wasn't some combination of IFR, flight following, VFR flight plan. But I agree with everyone that it shouldn't be a requirement.

Oh, I just remembered that last one I did that didn't have any of those! I was in the Bahamas and it was a flight of two (that resulted in my BCP icon), so we had that as our SAR support.

ShysDad wrote:Thank you Bryan that does make sense to me. That is a very interesting point. The thing about the flight plan is if you do not arrive on time, isn't the search initiated earlier?....THe plane burned so had the search began earlier they may have seen the blaze making location easier. The PLB argument is correct though, these should be required or at the very least encouraged. I agree though I am going to try and find ways to promote the new ELT and PLB's these would have definitely made a difference. Would these still work even though there was no cell phone reception where they crashed?

PLBs and ELTs do not depend on the cellular network. They are radio beacons.

Sadly, by the time a SAR is initiated by a flight plan the fire is long, long out. It just takes a while to do all the steps necessary before declaring someone to really be missing and not just someone who failed to close their plan. And that's even putting aside for the moment that in your specific event the crash was soon after take-off so the flight plan wouldn't even have been noted as unclosed for quite some time.

Don't take this the wrong way, I think you have been open and honest in your search, but I think you need to know that it's *extremely* uncommon for the people here to agree on anything. That you have anti-government, pro-government, anti-flight plan and pro-flight plan people all, with absolute unanimity, saying that a *requirement* for a flight plan is untenable is meaningful. So you can decide to move to a different quest (e.g. ELTs) for change for one of two reasons: 1) Because we're all stubborn fools that won't listen to your proposal or 2) Because you've read all the arguments and realize that the requirement is unworkable. Either way, your proposal doesn't stand a snow balls chance of becoming a rule so you're just banging your head on the wall. (By the way, we're not *all* stubborn fools, so it's not point 1)

ShysDad wrote:The PLB argument is correct though, these should be required or at the very least encouraged. I agree though I am going to try and find ways to promote the new ELT and PLB's these would have definitely made a difference. Would these still work even though there was no cell phone reception where they crashed?

Here's a not terrible summary of how they work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distress_r ... Hz_beacons

If I bang my head long enough, two things will happen. One is that I will get on heckuva headache, and two is eventually I will get through the wall. When I am done there will be changes, I do not know yet what they will be but there will be some. Everyone who knew my daughter said she was stubborn and hard headed, a force to be reckoned with, and that is true by the way haha. It is important to note that I taught her those traits. I promised her I would never stop fighting for her and I will never stop. I do appreciate everyone here for their help though.

ShysDad wrote:Thank you Bryan that does make sense to me. That is a very interesting point. The thing about the flight plan is if you do not arrive on time, isn't the search initiated earlier?....THe plane burned so had the search began earlier they may have seen the blaze making location easier. The PLB argument is correct though, these should be required or at the very least encouraged. I agree though I am going to try and find ways to promote the new ELT and PLB's these would have definitely made a difference. Would these still work even though there was no cell phone reception where they crashed?

It does start the search sooner and yes that is huge. But as I pointed out, the search may be started but if they are looking one place and you're in a totally different location it doesn't help. But in the case of your daughter a fire might have been a small signal, but it depends on the extent of the fire the burn ect. I know it's hard, but you have to start looking at the bigger picture and other accidents. Yes a fire from your daughters accident could have been seen but, what about accidents in which there is no fire to spot. Or the fire that is started but the flight is 50miles to the left or right of course, that they don't plan on looking.
For the PLB...they covered that above!

Little story here.
One of my best friends was involved in an accident nearly 2 years ago. After many years flying in Alaska he joined the marines right at the age cut off date. Top of his class and went on to fly F18's. They were 80 miles offshore one night doing maneuvers when his plane malfunctioned. At a rate of 60k a minute descent and nearly 600kts they ejected at about 2000agl. They both survived but needless to say where pretty blown apart. It's compared to a bomb blast at those speeds. Long long story not so long they where rescued about 5 hrs later. I would of thought it would of taken 30 minutes. I figured they had to of had every type of locating equipment possible. They were definetly on a flight plan and definetly being "watched" on radar. No one had a clue where they went down. It was at night and a 1500ft layer. The other planes figured he had radio trouble and returned to base because these planes our guys are flying are junk. One guy wasn't so sure. Dropped below the layer and w night vision just happened to notice an oil slick. Bam. Exact location right? Nope. It narrowed the search from 300 miles to 80. They have no plb's!! Both had shattered arms. Both approaching hypothermia and death rapidly. Both helmets w reflective tape blown off. Luckily my buddy was picked up with a slight heat signature from a c130 and was picked up by the helo. They could not find the back seater. One of the navy boats came barreling in and he was able to muster enough strength to kick away just in time to push off from the boat. This created just enough heat for the 130 to now locate him and yell to the boat your running him over. Saved minutes before hypothermia got him. Crazy story. But with all the high tech military equipment, flight plans, flight following etc. they both would have died and possibly never been recovered if not for the one pilot going in on his own on a gut feeling. (Please don't take out of context, not saying we leave guy feeling up to sar AT ALL). Another 30 min and they're water activated life vests would of been deflated and they'd of sunk. Another strange thing. You have to blow in the tube to reinflate but how do you do that with shattered arms. Could not believe they would not of had plb's!!!! The one thing that could of led them straight there.