02/2011

Summary:

Two Cirrus 22 type aircraft (registration 4X-CWN and 4X-CWO) arrived from ISRAEL at Kos National Airport on 28.04.09 at 09:18 h. After about 3 hours both aircrafts (a/c) took off with Kerkira as their destination. En route, while at 9,000 ft, they encountered icing conditions. Aircraft 4X-CWO returned and landed in Athens, while a/c 4X-CWN that preceded, landed at Zakinthos airport at 15:11 h. Next, the pilot of a/c 4X-CWN submitted a VFR flight plan to Kerkira and took off at 16:44 h. At 16:51:50 h the pilot reported his position as 91 nm from Kerkira and at 16:56:11 h he was returning to Zakinthos. The pilot’s wife who was on board the aircraft responded “just a minute please” to two calls from ATC at 16:57:16 h and 16:59:14 h, sounding obviously stressed. After that, despite continuous calls by ATC, there was no further response from the a/c. The sound emitted from an Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) was headed on the emergency frequency of the Airport of Kefalonia at 17:01 h, and ceased after 2 minutes. The wreckage of the a/c was located at 05:30 h on 29.04.09 on a mountainous region of Mt. Ainos of Kefalonia which was hard to access, at an altitude of 4.460 ft.