Ghost Plane? No Sign of Pilot After Plane Crashes

Saw this story today while reading the local news.
Flight originated in Ann Arbor, MI with Harbor Springs, MI as its destination 250 miles away.
The plane was found crashed with the controls on autopilot 400 miles north of Harbor Springs in Manitouwadge, Canada
With no sign of the pilot!
Could just be a suicide, but a strange story.

The wreckage of the single-engine Cessna aircraft was discovered on Thursday, about 60 kilometres east of Marathon, Ont., near White River. No body was found at the crash site and there were no footprints in the area surrounding the downed plane.

“When (the pilot) exited, and how (the pilot) exited, is still a mystery,” Transportation Safety Board of Canada senior investigator Peter Rowntree said Monday.

In his 20 years as an investigator, Rowntree said the Manitouwadge-area crash is one of the more intriguing cases to which he’s been assigned. “Certainly, it’s unusual,” he said. “Normally when you go to a crash site, there is someone there.”

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a reply to: RazorV66

Might've pulled a DB Cooper.

a reply to: RazorV66

Parachutes are a thing...

a reply to: RazorV66

Haven't the large commercial air planes been able to land a take off with no pilot since the mid 90"s?

Wonder where this was supposed to go (hit)?

a reply to: RazorV66

Its been 4 days now and authorities have concluded the search...another D.B.Cooper? What with him being a Grad Student and thinking about all the student loans and all............

a reply to: RazorV66

Ya this has been the talk of the mine site.
A few of our employees live in manitouwadge, about 3 hours from site here.
One of the shift bosses was saying him as his wife were outside when they heard a very loud plane. They looked up and seen it go over the tree line.

He said the police went from house to house looking for the Chinese national.

He could have bailed out over Lake Superior... but why? Why bail from a plane for no reason.
ATC has no record of a distress call.

a reply to: Macenroe82

If he bailed on the lake, would he hit ice?

a reply to: seasonal

Is was a Cessna a small prop plane, a light aircraft that are quite popular around the world for both recreational and small transport pilot's but if you were using to take people about 4 to 6 is all you could fit, my money is on the guy committing suicide though as TobyFlenderson say's he could have simply used it to try to disappear, avoid the law or just get off the grid for some reason, wouldn't be the first or the last to do so though this is a strange way to do it, that plane could have come down and killed someone unless he knew more or less were it was going to go down and that it would not.
Either way I would like to think the guy could be alive and if it was suicide why not just nose dive his plane.

a reply to: seasonal

Not necessarily. The lake doesn't freeze completely. It's frozen from shore to a few miles out. But not all the way.

a reply to: Macenroe82

Would't much matter, without a survival suit and probably with one, hypothermia is still fatal.

This is still a really weird story.

a reply to: RazorV66

There was a plane crash a couple weeks ago that was similar. They found the plane heavily damaged in a field and no sign of the pilot. It turned out he wasn't hurt, and had a meeting to get to, so he walked into town and went to his meeting.

the langoliers

a reply to: Zaphod58

That is a type "A" personality right there.

a reply to: TobyFlenderson

Made me laugh though.

By the time emergency personnel arrived at the site of a Kansas plane crash this week, the uninjured pilot already had:

Cleaned his personal belongings out of the plane.

Walked to a nearby bank.

Attended a business meeting.

Called federal aviation and transportation officials.


And caught a ride out of town.

www.kansascity.com...

Probably a smuggler. Opened the door to throw something out, got freaked out by the wind, bailed on the plane when he thought it was crashing. Wouldn't be the first time.

University of Michigan grad student. Purchase big life insurance policy. Find the beneficiary and you find the grad student, eventually. Happens quite often. Sometimes it takes YEARS before the missing person is declared dead, though.

Maybe the breakaways snatched another young pilot... like Valentich.

And I'm only 75% kidding.

originally posted by: RazorV66
The plane was found crashed with the controls on autopilot 400 miles north of Harbor Springs in Manitouwadge, Canada.

Could just be a suicide, but a strange story.
l

Gee, what a stark lesson in how easy it is to train the public mind to think what the controllers want them to think when faced with a given set of cirumstances.

Since the 'suicide pilot' label was floted with the crash of the GermanWings aeroplane, re-enforced by the loss of MA370, now every plane prang is a "SUICIDE PILOT" !!!!

Far out, the controllers must be rubbing their hands to getther with glee and laughfing their boxs off at the stupid mass of adults who cannot see how easily manipulated they are, even more easy to manipulate than young kids it would seem.

This is clearly a case of alien abduction in my book.... jk
The more plausible explanation as already mentioned, is the life insurance theory.

a reply to: carewemust

Ha! I thought the same thing!
Maybe he was hoping for catastrophic wreckage where a body could not be recovered, and hoping to be declared dead just on an assumption???