Usually it is bad news if a plane has a reputation for being flaky. The Piper Malibu/Meridian has a troubling history of engine fires, engine failures, landing gear problems, and generally weak construction for a plane that goes up to 25,000′ (Malibu; overworked piston engine with two turbochargers) or 30,000′ (Meridian; same plane with a turboprop engine). The windshields are kind of a sore point too, costing $28,000 to replace after typical problems with the defroster.
But what if you want people to believe you when you call ATC and say that your windshield has imploded? There is really no better airplane. Here’s a CNN article about a guy who bailed out of a 2002 Piper Meridian, tail number N428DC. He probably doesn’t get much credit for managing money, but I give him a lot of credit for being able to parachute out of a Meridian, a plane whose door is a good long walk from the pilot’s seat and right next to the tail.
Update: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhgPCL3uCH4 shows the guy flying under a bridge in 2000.
I am a skydiver. When jumping from a King Air or other plane with a side door and a low stabilizer, one must dive STRAIGHT DOWN. No lilting flourishes and swans. Down. Air Speed preferably under 120, better 100. I don’t know what the stall of that craft is.
Being a single engine it is pretty low, probably around 60-65 knots. But yeah, that door-tail combination is tricky for a skydiver. One misstep and you become stabilizer soup….
What a dope! Not only does the cad run away from his family and business obligations, but he gets caught. Why didn’t he fly to Bermuda or some other island to improve his chances of escape as well as not endangering anyone by having the plane crash into the water (and getting rid of the evidence)?
After trial, he deserves to go behind bars for awhile and rethink his life.
So in case you the reader are planning something equally cowardly:
1) I recommend a Caravan. Bigger door, slower speed.
2) Go over water to an international destination.
3) Don’t get caught. Don’t speak to a policeman in suspicious clothing.
4) Don’t ever come back.
David: Cowardly? I almost got a concussion flying a Meridian from BED to ASH (10 minutes) because the ceiling is so low that moderate turbulence slammed my head against the metal. This guy was brave enough to make the big jump. Of course, it is too bad that the Meridian doesn’t have any range. Otherwise the plane might have made it all the way into the ocean and the authorities wouldn’t have discovered the lack of a body. He seems to have been rather timid about facing his soon-to-be-ex-wife and the SEC (Madoff and Enron didn’t bother them, apparently, but this guy sure did), but I’d say that his Meridian bail-out was pretty courageous.
From my perspective, it’s more cowardly to run from your obligations (especially family) than to have the desperation to jump out of a plane and hide, leaving others to clean up your mess. I have a Hellenistic view of bravery:
From Thucydides:
“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.”
and from Aristotle:
“When their adventures do not succeed, however, they run away; but it was the mark of a brave man to face things that are, and seem, terrible for a man, because it is noble to do so and disgraceful not to do so.”
Phil, I have to agree with David — jumping out of a Meridian at night at low altitude might have been damn nervy, perhaps even taking some skill, but it was a coward’s way out of Schrenker’s self-created financial chaos. Given that one of the many allegations against this arrogant jerk is that he conned “dozens” of Delta Airlines pilots out of their pensions, I was hoping the alligators got him. Plus, it’s a waste of a beautiful airplane.
I think his intent was to have the airplane go down in the Gulf, although his fuel reserve was probably only a few minutes short of that:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N428DC
I’m sure the Meridian has more than 1:36 endurance. Dumbass.
lets get the facts straight
*The Meridian is not the same plane as a Malibu. it has a completely redesigned and wing and horizontal stabilizer, fuel system, avionics, landing gear…
* The pt6 engine is the gold standard for reliability
* The big problem with the windshield is that the pilots leave on the deice on the ground. The deice is nice to have when the weather is heavy.
* As for the long walk to the door. Well the auto pilot is really nice and will fly the airplane for hours without any help from a money manager.
* And yes it could use some more headroom
* Range is 1,000 miles, but perhaps he did not want to spend the money on the fuel. Flight planing for this trip is a little counter intuitive for me.
So Phil, as turbo props go it is a bit entry level. If you have more than 1.9 mil to spend on a plane god bless you, but don’t make fun of the poor folk
Pilot question – saw several attributions that this guy was a 10,000+ hour
pilot. Which seemed at odds with his stated age of 38, I mean in the sense
that unless your an airlines guy that seems to be quite a bit of flying for
anyone with a day job. For grins, looked him up on the FAA site also,
no medical listed. Bridge stunt struck me as a bit reckless, no surprise
it was outside the US.
Meridian Driver: I don’t turn up my nose at either the Malibu or the Meridian. I would be delighted to own one, but the costs scare me! After the Crash of 2008, I will be lucky to be flying an Ercoupe….
Rick S: It does seem odd that the guy had only a Commercial certificate with an instrument rating. No multi-engine rating and the Commercial was only recently issued (January 2007). It is odd that no medical shows up in the airmen registry. Let me check some pilot friends… Hmm… medicals for all of us! I guess the guy was flying without a medical, which is presumably the least of his problems at this point.
Re fuel (or why the plane didn’t crash at sea): Low-wing airplanes don’t usually have a “both” setting on the fuel selector–I wonder if that may have had something to do with the airplane not making it all the way to the ocean?