14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Friday, October 03, 2014 in Palm Coast, FL
Aircraft: MILLER RAYMOND A SONEX WAIEX, registration: N461MM
Injuries: 1 Fatal.
This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. NTSB investigators either traveled in support of this investigation or conducted a significant amount of investigative work without any travel, and used data obtained from various sources to prepare this aircraft accident report.
On October 3, 2014, about 0935 eastern daylight time, an experimental amateur-built Sonex Waiex, N461MM, owned and operated by a private individual, was substantially damaged when it impacted terrain about 10 minutes after takeoff from the Flagler County Airport (XFL), Palm Coast, Florida. The private pilot was fatally injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and no flight plan had been filed for the local personal flight that was conducted under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91.
According to initial information from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the all-metal, "Y-tail," two-seat monoplane was built by the pilot from a kit that was purchased during September 2010, and issued an FAA special airworthiness certificate on January 15, 2013. The airplane was equipped with an 80-horsepower 2180 AeroVee engine, and had been based at XFL for about 6 months.
According to FAA radar data, the airplane departed XFL about 0925, and flew to the northeast. According to the pilot's son, when the pilot failed to meet a family member on the evening of October 3rd, local authorities were contacted. The pilot's car was subsequently found in front of his hangar at XFL. The hangar doors were open and the pilot's son believed the pilot most likely elected to take a local solo flight in the airplane, which he had not flown solo previously. Radar data and cell phone "pings" were utilized to help determine the airplane's location. The airplane was subsequently found on October 4th, in a tidal marsh near Pellicer Creek, about 13 miles north-northwest of XFL. The majority of the airplane was buried in mud/water, with the empennage and portions of structure associated with both wings visible.
The airplane was subsequently recovered on October 9th, and was retained for examination to be performed at a later date.
A witness located in a residential community about 2.5 miles south of the accident site reported that he observed a white/silver single-engine airplane flying overhead sometime between 0900 and 1000. The airplane was approximately 1,000 feet above the ground, and flying to the north when it experienced a sudden, complete loss of engine power. The airplane turned to the left and completed two circular patterns before disappearing from his view. He did not hear any engine noise or sounds associated with an accident, and assumed that the pilot of the airplane performed a successful emergency landing to a nearby former golf course.
RAYMOND A. MILLER
WAIEX (SONEX) N461MM
http://registry.faa.gov/N461MM
http://www.sonexaircraft.com/Waiex
Raymond Miller
Crews search the crash site where 77-year-old Raymond Miller's plane might have crashed after he took off Oct. 3 from the Flagler County Airport. Multiple agencies were involved in the search Saturday, Oct. 4, 2014.
(VIDEO STILL/Flagler County Sheriff's Office)
The plane may have belonged to 77-year-old Raymond A. Miller of Palm Coast, who took off from the Flagler County Airport on Friday morning and never returned.
However, only a partial tail number can be seen on the wreckage, Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Justin Asbury said Sunday.
“It’s very early in the investigation,” said Luke Schiada, a senior investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board. “We haven’t confirmed that (it is Miller’s plane).”
Miller’s Sonex Waiex (pronounced Y-X) was reported missing late Friday night.
A wrecked plane was located Saturday afternoon about 12 miles north-northwest of the Flagler County Airport, Asbury said.
“It’s closer to Favor-Dykes (State Park in St. Johns County) than the interstate (95),” he said of the crash site.
While the investigation of the crash has been turned over to the NTSB, Asbury said the FHP is working to recover any and all bodies from the wreck.
All but the tail and one wing of the plane are submerged in mud in marshy area near the creek, Schiada said.
Getting to the site has been problematic and tidal flows are hampering efforts at the site.
Though crews – including members of the FHP, Federal Aviation Administration, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, NTSB, Flagler County Sheriff’s Office and Florida Air Recovery — were going to and from the Favor-Dykes boat launch Sunday on air boats borrowed from the wildlife commission and the East Flagler Mosquito Control District, recovery of the plane will not begin until Monday, Schiada said.
“It’s a tidal area and the plane is mostly buried in the mud,” he said, adding that it will likely take a helicopter to get it out.
Miller’s plane, numbered N461MM, is a 2013 “two-seat fixed wing single engine aircraft” with an “air worthiness” date of January 15, 2013, according to several websites that track airplane registration. Sonex, a company out of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, provides details on its website about the Waiex.
The “utility category” of the plane is 1,100 pounds, gross weight, and has a “useful load” of 480 pounds.
It is unknown whether anyone was with the pilot in the unpainted aluminum plane, Asbury said.
Miller wasn’t required to file a flight plan, airport officials said, because he was in a private experimental plane.
“We’re not going to guess,” he said about whether the number of occupants.
There are no trees near the crash site itself, Schiada said, but it is still unknown whether the plane hit trees on the way down. Gathering information about “the pilot, the plane and the environment” will take time, he said.
A preliminary report will likely be available in about 10 days, but the final report will take nine months to a year to complete.
Information about the pilot’s experience, the recency and type, as well as information about his medical history will be included in the “extensive” report.
The plane will be physically examined and its log book and maintenance history.
Radar data and weather information will also be included.
There is a tab “eyewitness report” on the National Transportation Safety Board website, www.ntsb.gov, and Schiada encourages anyone who may have seen something to contact his organization.
Work at the wreck site was halted about 4 p.m. Sunday because of the incoming tide and is scheduled to resume at 8 a.m. Monday.
http://www.news-journalonline.com
Authorities will resume recovery efforts Monday morning for the pilot and his plane, which apparently crashed in Flagler County.
Raymond A. Miller, 77, of Palm Coast was last seen Friday morning taking off in a northeasterly direction from Flagler County Airport and hasn’t been seen or heard from since then. On Saturday, searchers located an aircraft crash site west of Interstate 95 near Pellicer Creek in a remote area of the county.
Investigators and recovery specialists have been on scene since Saturday making preparations to remove the wreckage from the site. However, the recovery efforts have been hampered by the incoming tides, which have posed challenges and hazards for the emergency personnel, said Sgt, Dylan L. Bryan of the Florida Highway Patrol.
Authorities haven’t confirmed the identity of the pilot as yet. Recovery efforts were suspend late Sunday afternoon. As the tide recedes, authorities will resume those efforts Monday morning, Bryan said.
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FLAGLER COUNTY -- The search for a missing Palm Coast pilot will continue Sunday morning at an apparent crash site in Flagler County where investigators believe a missing pilot crashed into a creek.
The cockpit is submerged in mud and water in a swampy area near the St. Johns County line, and it's swarming with alligators.
The search for Raymond Miller, 77, began Friday after he told family members he was going to take off from the Flagler County Airport to practice touch-and-go landings.
He told family members he was going to Fort Pierce.
Miller took off from the Flagler County Airport around 9:30 a.m. Friday. The airport manager reported Miller took off from the airport in a northeasterly direction and never returned.
The massive search was suspended overnight because of the complexity of the terrain, limited light conditions and potential safety hazards in and around the water. The search is expected to continue at 9 a.m. — or earlier — officials said.
Some wreckage was found Saturday afternoon in the Pellicer Creek area, which is located near the Flagler County-St. Johns County line.
So far, officials have yet to determine if the wreckage is the plane that Miller was flying.
The plane, officials said, matches the description of the Sonex — Waiex experimental-type aircraft Miller was in. Officials, however, have had difficulty getting a tail number to confirm it is Miller’s.
Family members said Saturday that Miller claimed he was headed to Fort Pierce, but deputies said the farther Miller has flown in the past was about 15 miles. He has no known health issues, according to deputies.
Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are expected to be out at the site Sunday morning.
Several agencies are involved in the search for Miller, including the Flagler County Sheriff's Office, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office, the Florida Highway Patrol, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force Search and Rescue.
- Source: http://www.mynews13.com
The wreckage of the silver-colored experimental plane that went missing Friday after taking off from the Flagler County Airport in the morning was discovered deep in the marshes of Pellecier Creek in northeast Flagler County at 1:30 p.m.
Palm Coast’s Raymond Miller, 77, had built the plane last year and was piloting it. He had left the airport at 9 a.m. Friday. He is not believed to have survived, but rescue crews were on their way to the wreckage at 5 p.m. Saturday, after various attempts to reach the wreckage failed until a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission air boat and another air boat from mosquito control were secured.
Rescuers were expected to reach the plane site at 5:30 p.m., Flagler County Undersheriff Rick Staly said at 5 p.m.
The plane was located after the search was narrowed thanks to help from the Air Force. Until then, searchers were looking from air and ground over vast swaths of ground and sea.
Reports of Miller’s disappearance reached the Sheriff’s Office at 8 p.m. Friday. “We started looking for him then,” Staly said. “We’d pretty much exhausted all leads we had last night about midnight, plus there was the weather conditions, so we shut down the search. This morning at 6 a.m. we started search again.”
The search involved numerous agencies, including the Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Coast Guard, which had a C-26 and a C-130 plane in the air and two Coast Guard boats, FWC, help from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board (which will eventually conduct a full investigation of the crash), support from the Navy, which launched a helicopter of its own, and crucial assistance from the Air Force Search and Rescue unit and from the Civil Air Patrol, Florida Wing, out of Lakeland.
Raymond Miller of Palm Coast, missing since Friday.
Raymond Miller of Palm Coast, missing since Friday.
“Those combined efforts, specifically from the Air Force, allowed us to triangulate a possible location for the aircraft in a three square-mile area that borders St. Johns and Flagler County,” Staly said. “Up until then the only information we had was that he took off from Flagler County Airport at about 9 a.m Friday and flew in a northeasterly direction, so we were searching Flagler and about a thousand square miles of the Atlantic. After we got a more narrowed location, Civil Air Patrol, the FWC helicopter and Flagler Fire Flight converged into the smaller area and Fire Flight spotted the wreckage in a heavily marshed area of Pellecier Creek.”
FWC tried to walk some people in but was unable to do so. “We are using an air boat and some flat-bottom boats to try top get to the wreckage. It’s a very difficult area to get to,” Staly said. “Our agency does not own an air boat.” (SDtaly and Sheriff Jim Manfre may soon have discussions about adding an air boat to the sheriff’s inventory.)
Staly had taken a flight with Fire Flight, but from the air he said the cockpit of the plane was not visible.
So far he had limited information about Miller. “He was an experienced pilot who did not have a lot of time in this aircraft. That’s what I have been told,” Staly said.
Absent foul plan, which Staly said he did not expect, the scene of the wreckage will be turned over to the Florida Highway Patrol, which investigates plane crashes as it does vehicle crashes. The NTSB then follows. The wreckage is not likely to be removed any time soon, as it will need a salvage company and an operation of its own.
At 2:46 p.m., the Sheriff’s Office issued had the following statement: “Due to the remote location, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation have been asked to respond by boat. Medical units are also responding as it is unknown if anyone is on board. The scene will be turned over to the Florida Highway Patrol and the National Transportation Safety Board has been notified.”
Miller’s plane is a fixed-wing, single-engine Waiex (Sonex), certified on January 4, 2012, according to the Federal Aviation Administration registry. Miller himself is listed as the manufacturer on the registry, with a manufacturing date of 2013, from a manufacturing kit by Sonex Aircraft LLC.
This morning’s previous story is below.
Missing Plane and Pilot: Palm Coast’s Raymond Miller Disappeared in Experimental Plane Friday
11:30 a.m. Saturday–The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office is currently investigating a missing pilot and plane, last seen leaving the Flagler County airport at about 9:30 a.m. Friday (October 3).
Airport Manager Roy Sieger reported that the pilot, Raymond A. Miller, 77, of Palm Coast, took off from the airport in a Northeasterly direction and never returned. Airport officials reported that pilots are not required to file a flight plan from point A to point B in the type of private plane piloted by Miller.
Miller’s family reported to law enforcement that they spoke to the missing pilot at 7 p.m. Thursday and at that time he told them that was taking the plane out on Friday to practice touch and go landings. The furthest Miller has flown the plane in the past is about 15 miles. He has no known health issues.
The plane is described as an unpainted aluminum Sonex – Waiex experimental type aircraft with “461MM” on the tail section. The plane has an estimated range of 200 miles when fully fueled.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, Flagler County Emergency Management, the County’s Fire Flight, Volusia County Sheriff’s Office Air-One, Florida Highway Patrol, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force Search and Rescue have all joined forces in the search for the missing plane and its pilot.
Anyone who may have seen the plane overhead on Friday is urged to call the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office non-emergency line at 386-313-4911.
- Source: http://flaglerlive.com
The Flagler County Sheriff's Office received information Saturday afternoon of a possible crash site regarding a missing plane.
The Sheriff's Office says the wreckage was found west of Interstate 95 near Pellicer Creek.
Due to the remote location, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation was asked to respond by boat. Medical units are also responding in case there is someone on board.
The Sheriff's Office says the missing plane and pilot were last seen Friday around 9:30 a.m. leaving the Flagler County airport.
According to the Sheriff's Office, the airport's manager said Raymond Miller, 77, of Palm Coast, took off from the airport and never returned.
Miller's family told law enforcement Miller told them he was taking the plane out to practice touch and go landings.
The Sheriff's Office says the farthest Miller has flown the plane in the past is about 15 miles and that he has no known health issues.
The plane is described as an unpainted aluminum Sonex – Waiex experimental type aircraft with "461MM" on the tail section. The plane has an estimated range of 200 miles when fully fueled.
======
Investigators
have found a possible crash site in connection with their search
Saturday for a missing pilot who was last seen Friday morning taking off
from the Flagler County Airport.
The
Flagler County Sheriff’s Office reports Raymond A. Miller, 77, of Palm
Coast, took off in a Northeasterly direction and never returned.
The sheriff’s office reports the wreckage has been located West of Interstate 95 near Pellicer Creek in Flagler County. Because of the remote location, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation is responding by boat. Medical units are also responding, although at last report it was unknown if anyone was on board. The report of the wreckage came in around 1:20 p.m.
The scene will be turned over to the Florida Highway Safety patrol and the National Transportation Safety Board has been notified.
Flagler County Airport officials told the sheriff’s office that pilots aren’t required to file a flight plan from point A to point B in the type of plane Miller was piloting.
Miller’s family said they last spoke to him Thursday around 7 p.m. He told them he was taking the plane out to practice touch and go landings.
Miller was flying an unpainted aluminum Sonex - Waiex, which is an experimental type aircraft, according to the sheriff’s office. The plane has “461MM” on the tail section and has an estimated range of 200 miles with a full tank of fuel.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, Flagler County Emergency Management, the County’s Fire Flight, Volusia County Sheriff’s Office Air-One, Florida Highway Patrol, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force Search & Rescue have joined forces in the search for the missing plane and Miller.
Anyone who may have seen the plane overhead on Friday or may have other information surrounding Miller or the flight is urged to call the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office non-emergency line at 386-313-4911.
The sheriff’s office reports the wreckage has been located West of Interstate 95 near Pellicer Creek in Flagler County. Because of the remote location, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation is responding by boat. Medical units are also responding, although at last report it was unknown if anyone was on board. The report of the wreckage came in around 1:20 p.m.
The scene will be turned over to the Florida Highway Safety patrol and the National Transportation Safety Board has been notified.
Flagler County Airport officials told the sheriff’s office that pilots aren’t required to file a flight plan from point A to point B in the type of plane Miller was piloting.
Miller’s family said they last spoke to him Thursday around 7 p.m. He told them he was taking the plane out to practice touch and go landings.
Miller was flying an unpainted aluminum Sonex - Waiex, which is an experimental type aircraft, according to the sheriff’s office. The plane has “461MM” on the tail section and has an estimated range of 200 miles with a full tank of fuel.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, Flagler County Emergency Management, the County’s Fire Flight, Volusia County Sheriff’s Office Air-One, Florida Highway Patrol, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force Search & Rescue have joined forces in the search for the missing plane and Miller.
Anyone who may have seen the plane overhead on Friday or may have other information surrounding Miller or the flight is urged to call the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office non-emergency line at 386-313-4911.
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