Small Aircraft Are Falling Out Of The Sky

By James Donahue

Something odd has been happening this fall to the aircraft . . . mostly smaller single engine planes . . . all over the world. Mostly during a period of about two weeks during October they were falling out of the sky.

Bad weather seems to have been a factor in many of the crashes. Also some of the planes were attempting emergency landings after their pilots reported engine trouble. Is severe weather, or perhaps an unusual electrical anomaly going on? All of the lost planes are small, one or two-engine craft. Most are propeller driven, although at least one jet was among the planes lost.

Planes of all types, from two-seater private craft to larger commercial freight haulers and even military type jets, have been crashing. Each incident was noticed by local media, but because few of them were carrying a lot of passengers, they failed to get national attention on the nightly news.

Perhaps the news anchors are missing something.

Readers for a few Internet website, always looking for conspiracies, put it together. One site launched a thread of reports after a contributor brought attention to a number of crashes, all occurring during a short few days in October. With a little searching, I found even more during the same period.

Most of the crashes happened between Oct. 12 and Oct. 26.

--Two people were killed Oct. 19 in Atlanta, Ga., when their twin-engine plane crashed in a rainstorm just after takeoff for a trip to Florida. The crash occurred in a rainstorm and news reports suggested that weather may have played a role.

--Two men perished when their two-seat Czechoslovakian fighter-trainer jet crashed in the Cascade Mountains shortly after taking off from Boeing Field, Seattle, Washington, for a trip to Lewiston, Idaho. The pilot reported flight-control problems before the craft went out of radio and radar contact.

--A commuter plane, a twin-engine turboprop, with 13 passengers and two crew members on board crashed in a woods Oct. 19 while attempting to land at an airport near Kirksville, Missouri. Two passengers survived the crash. All were medical people traveling together to attend a conference at Kirksville. Witnesses said the plane seemed to have fallen apart in the sky before it hit the ground. Wreckage was strewn for miles. Thunderstorms were reported in the area at the time.

--On Oct. 26 a small private plane crashed while approaching an airport at Missouri, Wisconsin, killing two of three people on board. The single engine Cessna was arriving after a flight from Oklahoma when it crashed a half-mile short of the airport.

--On Oct. 26 another small aircraft crashed in a woods near Marion, Wisconsin, killing two people aboard.

--Sunday, Oct. 24, an air ambulance jet crashed in California, near the US/Mexican border, killing five people. Authorities said the plane went down shortly after taking off from a nearby airport.

--A Hendrick Motorsports aircraft crashed Oct. 24 on its way to a race at Patrick Springs, Virginia, killing all 10 passengers. The cause is undetermined.

--Two people died on Oct. 14 when their twin-engine cargo plane developed engine trouble and crashed short of the runway at Jefferson City Airport, Missouri. The plane was attempting to make an emergency landing.

The crashes aren’t just limited to the United States. A search of the web reveals that planes seem to be crashing all over the world.

--On Oct. 15 a Douglas DC-3C cargo plane crashed into power lines and a woods while attempting to make a landing at Medellin, Colombia. Three people on the aircraft were killed. Bad weather was blamed.

--A cargo plane crashed while attempting to take off from an airstrip at Halifax, Canada on Oct. 12. The plane struck the runway twice, briefly became airborne, then crashed in a woods and broke up. Seven people died.

--A cargo plane crashed and burned in a wooded area near Kadugli, Sudan, while attempting to make an emergency landing on Oct. 5. Four people were killed.

Was it an unusual weather phenomenon, perhaps super high winds aloft, that overpowered these smaller aircraft? While large commercial jet planes can handle winds of 60 to 90 miles an hour, they can knock small craft out of the sky.

Because of changing weather, caused by global warming, all of the world aircraft may now be in jeopardy.