http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/Plane-pi ... index.html

Hope to hear some good news.

Fingers crossed here, but doesn't sound good. Some new deep snow in the upper Hoback right now.

http://www.subletteexaminer.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=72&story_id=2345

Weather was chitty all day in Jackson today. I was working at about 7500' and getting freezing rain on my windshield around 3 o'clock. Conditions don't get much worse for a 182 IMO.

Hoping for the best...

Tyler Pierce, a volunteer from Sublette County’s Tip Top Search and Rescue, ascends a ridge Monday while searching for a single-engine plane near the Wyoming Range in western Sublette County.
SUBLETTE COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE/COURTESY PHOTO

vis in that picture looks poor still - have they been able to get any SAR aircraft up yet?

CamTom12 wrote:vis in that picture looks poor still - have they been able to get any SAR aircraft up yet?

CAP 182 headed that way @ 8:30 am this morning.. Weather was not too bad here in the hole then, it has gotten worse now. Hope they find something.

Hi Folks - I fly a C-182 and am based out of Stevensville, MT. I want to say thank you to the many folks on this forum who have checked up on me in the last 24 hours, it is very comforting, but I am NOT the missing pilot.

Best wishes to the the pilot and his family. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone.

Dave

Still nothing.... They had decent weather and good vis.. The area has pretty heavy timber so if it went straight down it could be missing for a long time...

http://www.chron.com/news/article/Searc ... 053408.php

When I fly that route, I always call Jackson at Teton Pass and they usually keep me till Bondurant, It's a pretty important place to give a transition notice because you're crossing the centerline of the KJAC 19 ten miles out. It seems likely that the tower could give a pretty close location.

Nosedragger wrote:When I fly that route, I always call Jackson at Teton Pass and they usually keep me till Bondurant, It's a pretty important place to give a transition notice because you're crossing the centerline of the KJAC 19 ten miles out. It seems likely that the tower could give a pretty close location.

The last radar hit was 41 nautical miles south of the JAC VOR.. SLC center tracked a VFR target from Montana, down the west side of the Tetons, over Alpine and at about Thayne he turned eastbound. Went over the first set of low mountains and into the Greys river drainage. The next range of mountains is alot higher so he apparently was trying to get into the Hoback drainage by either heading over and through the head waters of the Hoback river, or maybe trying to follow the Horsecreek drainage down SE toward my airport, 2WY3. Centers last hit was at 43.00.58 /110.35.59, or about mile or so from Hoback Peak... That puts him at about 9400MSL with peaks in front of him that rise up to 10,400 or so. If he dropped into a draw to try and fly under the clouds, radar would not be able to see him and he could have progressed further. Late Saturday afternoon they called his cell phone and it rang so where ever the phone is it is range of one of three towers that are near by. Apparently it is taking a court order to have the phone company release those ping readouts. ... If any of you local guys want to take a look see in the area be advised there will be the CAP plane, another local pilot from Pinedale and the heli doing a search so be alert for traffic... The area is VERY remote so, in my opinion, the more eyes looking for him the better but ruffling the feathers of the S&R guys is a possibility... The chance he is still alive is pretty remote but the S&R guys /gals ain't giving up ........ Lets hope for the best...

Stol wrote:

Nosedragger wrote:When I fly that route, I always call Jackson at Teton Pass and they usually keep me till Bondurant, It's a pretty important place to give a transition notice because you're crossing the centerline of the KJAC 19 ten miles out. It seems likely that the tower could give a pretty close location.

The last radar hit was 41 nautical miles south of the JAC VOR.. SLC center tracked a VFR target from Montana, down the west side of the Tetons, over Alpine and at about Thayne he turned eastbound. Went over the first set of low mountains and into the Greys river drainage. The next range of mountains is alot higher so he apparently was trying to get into the Hoback drainage by either heading over and through the head waters of the Hoback river, or maybe trying to follow the Horsecreek drainage down SE toward my airport, 2WY3. Centers last hit was when he was within a mile of Hoback peak... That puts him at about 9400MSL with peaks in front of him that rise up to 10,400 or so. If he dropped into a draw to try and fly under the clouds, radar would not be able to see him and he could have progressed further. Late Saturday afternoon they called his cell phone and it rang so where ever the phone is it is range of one of three towers that are near by. Apparently it is taking a court order to have the phone company release those ping readouts. ... If any of you local guys want to take a look see in the area be advised there will be the CAP plane, another local pilot from Pinedale and the heli doing a search so be alert for traffic... The area is VERY remote so, in my opinion, the more eyes looking for him the better but ruffling the feathers of the S&R guys is a possibility... The chance he is still alive is pretty remote but the S&R guys /gals ain't giving up ........ Lets hope for the best...

Ah, Thanks for the clarification. I've done that route in reverse, got through the desolate part at 14k and ended up sleeping on a couch in Alpine showing 30 minutes from home on the GPS. That is remote. The privacy thing needs a common sense clause, good Lord I'd be pissed if they left me to die because they couldn't see my phone records.

I was going to fly down there this morning and look for the guy ,, but the weather has turned pretty ugly again...

http://mesowest.utah.edu/cgi-bin/droman ... ?stn=MCOBT

This remote weather reporting site is a just few miles away from the search area.... Winds are howling and the temps are not encouraging for survival... It has now been 85 hours since he went missing... Thoughts are with his family.

The privacy thing needs a common sense clause, good Lord I'd be pissed if they left me to die because they couldn't see my phone records.

I'm not sure if things are different in Idaho, but I know over here cell phones are pinged on a regular basis by SAR and LE for people who are lost, missing, suicidal etc. and a court order to do it takes about ten minutes. The problem may be the ability of his provider to pinpoint his coordinates. For instance if I understand it correctly at&t uses what has been described to me as phase 1 technology in remote areas which is not as accurate as phase 2 technology (verizon) that can narrow it down to a couple hundred yards in remote areas where they have coverage. I'm sure some others here can probably explain it better than I can, but it sounds like there's more to the story?

I hope for the best for he and his family. If he was able to put it down soft (no elt signal???) and build a snow cave...????

CW

If he has a "smart phone" with built-in GPS it's easy, the phone tells the cell site where it is and they go there and look for him. If he has a cheap phone then it gets complicated, they ping the phone and the time delay gives them a distance from the cell site, not a direction. Ping it with 2 cell sites and they get two possible locations, sometimes many miles apart. Ping it with 3 cell sites and they get a good location. Having 3 cell sites with good overlapping coverage of a remote area is not very common. Also reflected signals can sometimes give bizarre results when they ping a phone. Unfortunatly what works CSI does not work in reality. I hope for the best outcome. I don't remember details, but a few years ago S&R reached a crash site after 5 days of storm expecting to recover a body and found the pilot alive in a snow cave with "motel 6" above the entrance.

So a pilot makes a deliberate conscious decision in bad wx to scud run down drainage's with no SPOT, no GPS cell phone, no 406 PLB/ELT.

Am I the only one who thinks this is irresponsible, selfish, and shows no regard for yourself, your family or the SAR people who risk their lives to try and save your dumb ass????

Hey Rob we all can't be as electronic'ly connected as you.... Hell I don't have a PLB that I wear when I ....... nevermind

OregonMaule wrote:So a pilot makes a deliberate conscious decision in bad wx to scud run down drainage's with no SPOT, no GPS cell phone, no 406 PLB/ELT.

Am I the only one who thinks this is irresponsible, selfish, and shows no regard for yourself, your family or the SAR people who risk their lives to try and save your dumb ass????

I did something stupid and irresponsible once and was fortunate to not have to pay a price as big as he is having to pay right now. You would not have had the career you did if common sense were common and people accepted responsibility for their own actions instead of relying on the "system" to "save" them. It's still sad and he still needs rescued from his poor decision/mistake/laps of judgement/accident or whatever it ends up being.

So a pilot makes a deliberate conscious decision in bad wx to scud run down drainage's with no SPOT, no GPS cell phone, no 406 PLB/ELT.

Some of us have been scud running and flying some pretty out there places without ANY electronic anything for decades. All part of the adventure if it goes right, and job security for a few folks if it doesn't.

Gump

OregonMaule wrote:So a pilot makes a deliberate conscious decision in bad wx to scud run down drainage's with no SPOT, no GPS cell phone, no 406 PLB/ELT.

Am I the only one who thinks this is irresponsible, selfish, and shows no regard for yourself, your family or the SAR people who risk their lives to try and save your dumb ass????

Irresponsible???? Damn, bro!! By the looks of your avatar, you can't speak to highly of yourself!! Poor innocent baby smokin a gig and sitting next to a bottle of whiskey??? Come on, man!!