“We track the plane via its transponder. After a while, we realize that a catastrophe is imminent”: Sweden’s coast guard tells in a post on Instagram how they experienced the crash of a Cessna Citation II on September 4th in the Baltic Sea.
“The plane begins to descend rapidly and after a few minutes it disappears from our screen,” it said. The crash site is found quickly. “Oil and small parts of the former aircraft can be seen on the surface of the water,” the report said. Rescue helicopters and ships from Sweden and Latvia are informed. But: “It quickly becomes clear to us that this is not a life-saving operation.”
On Tuesday (September 6) a spokeswoman for the Latvian Navy told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that body parts had now been found in the sea. However, it is not yet certain whether these are really body parts of the aircraft occupants – the Latvian criminal police are investigating.
The spokeswoman went on to say that the first phase of the search operation had been completed. The wreck of the Cessna Citation II, which lies around 60 meters deep in the Baltic Sea, will now first be examined with the help of robots.
The business jet with the registration number OE-FGR had started in Jerez, Spain, on board the owner, a German businessman and pilot, his wife, his daughter and their friend. However, he could no longer be reached in French airspace. Fighter jets took off, a pilot noticed movement in the cabin but saw no one in the cockpit.
The Cessna changed course south of Paris and then a few more times, probably thanks to autopilot, in order to reach the planned destination of Cologne. There, however, the machine flew over the airport and headed straight to the northeast. German and Danish fighter jets also failed to establish contact.
As the Cessna, accompanied by a fighter jet, passed the Danish island of Bornholm, someone recorded a short video of the two planes. The Swedish Coast Guard said in its report that estimates indicated that the plane south of Gotland would run out of fuel. In fact, she made it further, skipping the island and only then crashing into the sea off Latvia.
Why all this happened is not clear. One possibility is that the four people on board lost consciousness due to a drop in pressure.
This article was written by Timo Nowack
The original of this post “Wreck of the Ghost Cessna lies 60 meters deep in the Baltic Sea” comes from aeroTelegraph.
