Fighters from Spain, France, Germany and Denmark tracked the plane of a German businessman and his family without seeing or communicating with the passengers
Civil aviation authorities are trying to unravel what has happened in the five hours that have passed since German businessman Karl Peter Griesemann’s plane took off from Spain’s Jerez de la Frontera airport on Sunday until it plummeted into the waters of the Baltic Sea. off the coast of Latvia. Swedish rescue services found the first remains of the Cessna 551 piloted by the tycoon himself on Monday, but no indication of the whereabouts of the 72-year-old director and the plane’s other three occupants: his wife, Julianne, age 68; her daughter, Lisa, 26; and a fourth passenger, 27, who was likely the girl’s boyfriend.
Experts have already called the OE-FGR flight the “ghost plane.” The Cessna, 40 years old and with a capacity of a dozen passengers, left the Andalusian city at 2:56 pm on Sunday. His destination was Cologne, where Griesemann led a business group with a company of eleven ambulance planes. The director himself was in control.
The family returned to Germany after spending a few days in their chalet in the municipality of Tarifa. They had been regulars on the coast of Cadiz for four decades when the businessman bought the house in an area near Zahara de los Atunes where a large colony of Germans lives and numerous luxury houses are being built. They spent three or four seasons a year there.
Things got complicated for the OE-FGR as it crossed the skies of Toledo. The pilot reported that he would suffer from pressure problems in the cabin. The inspectors misunderstood him. His voice cracked. Two military fighters took off from Torrejón de Ardoz. The usual NATO protocol in this kind of emergency. They were placed on either side of the aircraft as escort. The army visually inspected the helmet and tried to communicate with Griesemann by radio without getting any response. They also did not see the passengers. But they did notice that the ship was flying on autopilot in a straight line and at a constant speed.
On reaching the Bordeaux vertical, the Spanish fighters gave way to a French patrol. Sources close to the case assure that a second call could have been made from the cabin at some point before passing Paris to confirm pressure issues in the device, although this point has not been confirmed. In fact, the French Air Force specified that its commanders could not distinguish anyone on the plane, which flew at an altitude of about 1,100 meters. An expert told a Swedish newspaper on Monday that this could be an indication that the four occupants were already dead or had passed out from lack of oxygen.
Be that as it may, flight OE-FGR continued its advance. He made a turn near Paris and another later, already within German airspace, in Cologne. This was reported by the pilot of a Eurofighter sent by the German army who also saw no human activity in the Cessna. The last witnesses to the ‘ghost flight’ were two crew members of a Danish fighter plane, which took over from the German and was able to follow its last trajectory. The plane practically hovered. Suddenly he started to lose height. He went into a spin. He ran out of fuel. It eventually crashed violently into the waters of the Baltic Sea. It was 7:45 PM.
Earlier, authorities sounded the alarm on the island of Gotland – the same that Sweden ordered to be militarily shielded due to its strategic location relative to Russia – in case the plane fell on it. Aviation sources consider it a “miracle” that the Cessna has not crossed any other aircraft on its long and erratic path and that it has flown over much of inhabited Europe to land exactly in the sea just eight miles from the Latvian coast.
The Swedish coast guard deployed rescue planes, a helicopter and several boats on Sunday evening. The device began to give results Monday morning with the discovery of some pieces of the Cessna. The small size of the fragments suggests that the collision blew up the ship while going into sea.
Karl Peter Griesemann was well known in Cologne. In addition to his entrepreneurial side, he was also honorary president of the Blue Sparks, an active group that took part in the Cologne Carnival. It was very popular in the region. It’s hard to find pictures where he’s not smiling.
The search is assisted by Lithuanian and Estonian teams. It is centered on an area of 36 square kilometers and about 60 meters deep. Rescuers believe the sea conditions and the violence of the impact make it impossible to find survivors.
Source: La Verdad
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