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March 23, 2018 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
13:56
Audio from N900KN TBM aircraft that flew over Cuba and crashed near Jamaica
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What you're about to hear is the edited audio showing the air traffic control conversations with November 900 Kilo November which was a TBM aircraft it's a single engine turboprop that flew over Cuba Well, the U.S. Air Traffic Control lost contact with it, it looks like over Atlanta, or at least the Atlanta Air Traffic Control Center.
And from there, the aircraft flew over Cuba and then crashed into the ocean near Jamaica, probably from fuel starvation at that point.
But this conversation is taken from Air Traffic Control.
You're going to hear the pilot You're going to hear him identifying his plane as 900 kilo November and that's 900 KN is the tail number or N 900 KN actually.
And then you're going to hear air traffic control responding to his request to descend to flight level 180, which means 18,000 feet, saying that he's got an indication that something's not correct on the plane.
Air traffic control gives him permission to descend 250, or 25,000 feet.
The pilot says he needs to get lower.
But this is a mystery, because the pilot then says, Something about reserve fuel, and that he's got a limit of some kind on the fuel, has to get down.
They clear him to land in Taylor, but he never makes it down.
And then the contact is lost.
It appears the pilot became unconscious.
And from that point on, really, the pilot isn't responding to air traffic control at all.
Some fighter jets are dispatched.
They tail the plane until it reaches Cuba.
The fighter jets peel off.
The plane continues over Cuba.
The pilot continues to be nonresponsive.
Now, this pilot is a New York real estate developer, reportedly a really well-known, wealthy individual, apparently someone who's very I'm very productive and contributed a lot to the city of New York.
My heart goes out to him and his family for dying in this crash which appears to have been caused at least in part by a pressurization failure.
Now keep in mind that you can't really breathe air over an altitude of Well, let's say the FAA requires oxygen above 12,500, and this aircraft was at 28,000.
If you lose pressure at that altitude, you're going to probably suffer from hypoxia very quickly, which can cause you to lose consciousness and cause you to be confused and not be able to think clearly or even speak clearly.
So you will hear evidence of that in this audio.
So here's the audio, and then I'll have a few more comments afterwards.
Oh, one more thing.
Keep in mind, this audio has been edited to shorten it.
So all the pauses are taken out.
All of the conversations with other aircraft are taken out.
So this, even though this sounds like a rapid conversation in real time, this actually took place over about 30 minutes.
...CBM-900, Kilo-November, level 280.
Over 9-0-0, Kilo in November, Atlantic City Kilo in November Good 9-0 to Kilo in November, we need you to send down to about 1-8-0 We have an indication that it's not correct in the plane.
Bye-bye.
180K in November, descend to make St.
Louisville 250.
250, we need to get lower, 900K in November.
Working on that.
We've got a track at 12 o'clock and 15 miles north on public 240.
And uh, we have to get down, number zero Kilo November, 10, uh, 30 degrees left, have to get down.
30 laps, 900 Kilo November.
2-0-0-900-G1 November.
Number 0-0 November, you're cleared to direct to Salem.
*Sigh* Number zero Kilo November, clear direct to Taylor.
Direct Taylor, 900 Kilo November.
Number 0, Kilo, November.
Copy that.
State got to the 10th, Papa 2-0-0.
November 0, Kilo, November 2.
Descend and maintain flight level 2, 0, 0 and you are clear, direct, sailor.
Kilo, November 9, 2, 0, November.
Understanding the descent and maintain flight level 2, 0, 0.
Flight level 2, 0, 0 for November 9, 0, Kilo, November.
TBM, TBM, zero kilo November, descend and maintain flight level C-00.
November, if you hear this, transmission, I dent.
November 363, Victor Poppins, you're under.
Bloomberg 3632, if you will, if you try November 9 or zero, zero kilo, November.
Have to contact me on 3360.
Uh, yeah, can you give me that, uh, call sign again?
I'm sorry, it's November 900, Kilo, November.
Have them contact me on 124.42.
I will log in for traffic.
It counts in 3972.
Contact Atlanta Center, 128.8.
Returning data, it's going to be 3972.
November 900, Kilo, November.
Atlanta Center.
How do you read?
Bloomberg 3632.
Have traffic at 11 o'clock in the Windsor Mile, South East 912.310.
Contact Atlanta Center 120.72 Alright, we're looking for that traffic and we're going to 120.72.
No luck with November 00, Kilo, November.
120.72 120.72, thanks.
November, uh, 32-32 today.
November 900, Kilo, November, Atlanta Center.
I see 56-85.
We try November 900, Kilo, November.
Let's try it.
TBM 900 Kilo November, this is AC 5685, how do you reach?
November 900 Kilo November, Atlanta Center, how do you reach?
TBM 900 Kilo November, AC 5685, how do you reach?
November 900 Kilo November, TBM 900 Kilo November, Atlanta Center, how do you hear this?
November 900 Kilo November, if you hear this, descend now, descend now to call it level 200.
November 900 Kilo November, descend now to call it level 200.
November 900 Kilo November, TBM 900 Kilo November, if you hear this transmission, contact Jacksonville Center 127.87.
November 900 Kilo November, TBM 0 Kilo November, connect Jacksonville Center 127.87, if you hear this transmission.
you also heard Air Traffic Control attempt to recruit another aircraft to try to contact Zero Kilo November, but that aircraft failed to contact them as well.
You also heard Air Traffic Control repeatedly Try to get this aircraft to respond even to squawk and IDENT code on their transponder just in case they had a comm failure.
But there was no response.
So here's my assessment of this.
Air Traffic Control did a great job here.
They did everything they could.
They tried everything to contact this aircraft, but to no avail.
It appears that the pilot lost consciousness at some point in this conversation.
The most likely explanations for that are either hypoxia, lack of oxygen caused by cabin depressurization at altitude, or possibly carbon monoxide poisoning in the flight deck caused by a problem with the routing of the engine exhaust.
That has happened before as well.
Carbon monoxide can of course kill you right there in the flight.
So, is this a mechanical failure in the aircraft?
Well, we don't know for sure.
I would like to say that the FAA and the NTSB will investigate this, and they've got great investigators, and they will probably be able to reach better conclusions about what happened.
And, you know, they're good at their jobs, so we should really let them do it.
I should also say that Sokata, the manufacturer of the TBM aircraft, is a very quality manufacturer.
I believe they're a French company, and they're known for quality aircraft, so I wouldn't rush to jump to a conclusion blaming them.
It's hard to say what might have happened.
Something could have happened in aircraft maintenance that caused a loss of pressurization or a failure of pressurization warning systems.
It's hard to rush to judgment here.
Maybe it's a combination of pilot error and a failure of an aircraft system.
Maybe it's a failure of an aircraft system combined with the pilot's failure to follow emergency protocols following that failure.
For example, pilots that fly in pressurized aircraft are supposed to carry supplemental oxygen with them so that if they lose pressure, they can, of course, strap on a supplemental oxygen tank, essentially, or a mask from a drop-down oxygen supply like you have in commercial aircraft.
And then they can continue to receive oxygen so that they can function and bring the aircraft down to a lower altitude.
So it's very difficult to say yet exactly what happened.
But the good news is this doesn't seem like a case like MH370, which disappeared earlier this year, I think in March.
There's still been a lot of talk about what happened there.
I still think that was a hijacking and someone stole the Boeing.
But this case of zero kilo November does not appear to be that kind of thing.
It doesn't seem to be a hijacking at all.
Lastly, my heart goes out to Glazer, the pilot, and his family and friends who were killed on the flight.
Overall, general aviation is very, very safe.
You hear stories in the news about aircraft crashing only because that is what grabs headlines.
You generally don't hear about all the safe flights that happen every single day all around the world.
General aviation, which is private aviation, recreational aviation, point-to-point business aviation like we saw here, is very, very safe.
The safety record is extraordinary, and it's far safer than driving on the highway by a very wide margin.
And pilots are trained extensively in safety procedures and emergency procedures.
So have no doubt that this pilot was well trained and should have been able to handle whatever emergency came up.
These general aviation aircraft, they don't simply fall out of the sky for no reason.
And in fact, this aircraft, the Sokata TBM, is so safe that it can be glided into a controlled descent and a very safe landing, even without an engine or without fuel.
So if this pilot had lost fuel, he still could have managed to glide this aircraft into a runway many, many miles away.
I don't know what the glide ratio is on this, but it's probably something like 10 to 1.
In other words, you can get 10 miles of distance for every one mile that you drop in altitude as it is gliding.
So he could have glided his aircraft to an emergency landing on a runway somewhere, landed it, and walked away if he had run out of fuel.
The one thing these aircraft can't do is they can't take over for you if you lose consciousness.
Sure, they have autopilots, but the autopilots have to be engaged by a human, and the autopilots typically in these aircraft are not capable of autopilot landings.
They're only capable of autopilot dual-axis control, such as maintaining your altitude or maintaining your heading, but not landing your aircraft.
So, again, it gets back to the consciousness issue.
It appears this pilot lost consciousness and as a result became unresponsive to air traffic control and then therefore was unable to take the aircraft into an emergency descent or an emergency landing.
There's no, doesn't seem to be any weird conspiracy related to this at all.
Just somehow, the pilot lost consciousness, and then the aircraft continued to fly on its own until it ran out of fuel after passing Cuba.
And then, of course, at that point, it dove into the ocean and everyone was killed on impact.
Sad story, but fortunately a very rare story when it comes to general aviation.
So I hope this analysis has been useful.
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