Sling goes down on Catalina Island, two lost

[-]

fly_ingmachine@reddit

This is incredibly sad, my deepest condolences to those who lost loved ones.

I believe this aircraft was a privately owned Sling. In LA, there’s often an assumption that every Sling is associated with the school, but that’s not the case here.

That said, the school operates around 60 aircraft and logs roughly 50,000 flight hours annually. By any standard, that’s an impressive safety record. I earned my PPL there and also own a Sling, and my experience has been overwhelmingly positive. The instructors, ownership, and maintenance team are all top-notch.

[-]

NextPhase2024@reddit

Do these machines have black boxes?

[-]

metrics_man@reddit

Damn I flew these out of KTOA for PPL flight school. Idk if this was a teaching incident but some of those instructors were…hazardous in their judgement calls.

[-]

Holualoabraddah@reddit

These were not flight instructors, they were Marines, one retired one reserve, with A LOT of flight experience including flying Helicopters in combat in Iraq.

[-]

Primary_Beyond_1664@reddit

Obviously, they were flying the airplane like a helicopter, scud-running and busting the altitude restriction over the Marine Sanctuary, and did it repeatedly. Just what the hell was the purpose?

[-]

snappdigger@reddit

Do you know which one was piloting the aircraft?

[-]

Holualoabraddah@reddit

I do not.

[-]

Extreme_Variety_4633@reddit

I knew them personally. It's a sad day for all that knew them. Forever young 😢.

[-]

Holualoabraddah@reddit

Sending a hug, I knew one of them, and he was a wonderful human being. I feel for both of their families.

[-]

Extreme_Variety_4633@reddit

Thank you. I notified a few of our "group" and it seemed to get harder and harder to hold my composure with every contact.

[-]

Status_Discount23@reddit

how do you know this?

[-]

metrics_man@reddit

Dang, sucks to hear that.

[-]

Holualoabraddah@reddit

It was his own plane, not sure what they were doing for maintenance, but, I don’t think the flight school was connected at all.

[-]

LookoutBel0w@reddit

Doesn’t mean alot stateside.

I’ll get heat but some of the worst crm and ADM I see is from ex military pilots

[-]

SenorSam_@reddit

Looks like they were 800ft skimming a canyon and slammed into a mountain.

[-]

Impossible_Sense7974@reddit

They didn’t crash at that spot, just lost comm / flight path recording. The crash spot was pretty much on the other side of the hill from Avalon. There was a marine layer at the crash site that am.

[-]

Ok-Weekend9016@reddit

they did frequently fly low on purpose typically between 100 and 400’ for fun

[-]

Ok-Weekend9016@reddit

Wish I could share a photo here

[-]

Granite_burner@reddit

Marine layer?

[-]

Homer1s@reddit

No, those ladies are in Oceanside not Catalina. They need to be near Pendleton.

[-]

OCFlier@reddit

I don’t think it was related to the aircraft.

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N166TW/history/20260409/1749Z/KTOA/L%2033.40075%20-118.48334

They crossed the channel at 3500’, which is a bad decision in itself. No gliding back to dirt if something goes wrong mid-channel.

[-]

fly123123123@reddit

That’s not necessarily a bad decision. They’re flying out of Torrance. It’s a 17 mi gap. It’s hard to even reach 5,000 feet before needing to begin a descent again. Everyone I know who flies this gap plans for a ditching and brings life vests.

[-]

Sunsplitcloud@reddit

Just circle up and climb. Just like you should on the way home.

[-]

fly123123123@reddit

To each their own. I think I’m just as screwed every time I take off in LA as I am for the 3 minutes when I’m over the channel and out of gliding distance. It’s not worth an extra 10 minutes of climbing in circles and trying to get a bravo clearance.

Coming from the north, I exit the SFRA at 3,500 and then climb to 4,500. Once I’m clear of the 5,000 ft shelf, I’ll sometimes continue a climb to 5,500 or 6,500 depending on what my course is at that point. That’s enough to reduce the risk factor to a reasonable level, at least for me.

[-]

Sunsplitcloud@reddit

That’s why I don’t fly at night unless it’s over an area I know well and in my turbine. Which I still rarely do. 2800 hrs. 120night. Much of that is local pattern stuff to stay current every few months.

[-]

shrunkenhead041@reddit

Agree. Climb to minimize your exposure time out of glide range, but most don't go high enough to completely eliminate the risk. Wear an inflatable PFD (not auto inflated), and plan to ditch near a boat or ship.

[-]

Jorfogit@reddit

Sorry, just wondering - why not an auto inflated one? I don't do much flying over water as a very deliberate choice, but I'm curious.

[-]

Sqoobe@reddit

Auto-inflation is on contact with water, which makes egress from the cabin difficult if there’s water already inside the aircraft.

[-]

shrunkenhead041@reddit

Because if your cabin floods before you get out, it will inflate and make it much harder or impossible to get out.

You can get an auto-inflate model that has a removable auto-trigger, so you could use it both in a plane, and on a boat (where you do want auto-inflate in case you get knocked out and thrown overboard).

[-]

DeltaTule@reddit

Kind of hard under LAX bravo for half the flight. Being life jackets and an inflatable raft if possible

[-]

digital_dyslexia@reddit

The bravo is at 8000ft if you're direct from Torrance and at 7500ft over John Wayne, there's no reason to not climb as much as you can. I think 90% of single engines usually climb to cross at 6500

[-]

OCFlier@reddit

I fly it at 6500 when coming from CCB and circle around the island to climb to 7500 on the way back home

[-]

gcys@reddit

Why hard? Isn't the bravo shelf at 8000' there?

[-]

Ok-Weekend9016@reddit

Yea I've watched their videos and it’s clear they regularly fly to Catalina also fly at a low altitude on purpose

[-]

Thatgliderpilot@reddit

As someone’s that’s too lazy to go find a chart and measure it, how long is the distance over water?

[-]

astroamy24@reddit

Looks like about 17nm at the closest points

[-]

MyPilotInterview@reddit

I remember climbing up to 9,500 I think.

[-]

Granite_burner@reddit

Did you factor in TDZE for 22 at KAVX being over 1500’ MSL with final being over the ocean?

In other words in order to glide to a safe landing you’d need to be well over 1500’ when you reached short final. And not very forgiving terrain around there even if you could avoid ditching. I remember the sight picture was very impressive with that hump in the runway to additionally complicate things.

[-]

Paranoma@reddit

The goal is to make it to shore, not to an airport. But if you want you can be extra cautious and do just that. But, if you’re always going to do that even when over land you’re going to have some interesting routings.

[-]

Granite_burner@reddit

When shore is a vertical cliff into the water there may not be any value in reaching it.

There is some rugged coastline on Catalina Island that I’m not sure I could survive swimming to and getting out of the water. Reference the photo used as Apple’s default wallpaper for MacOS Catalina.

[-]

Paranoma@reddit

Yes much of the shore is rugged, but certainly not impossible to reach a beach. Two Harbors and Avalon Harbor are both great places to ditch, there are other remote beaches as well. And there are nearly always boats around the island. I have flown in and out of Catalina many times and have never seen a shortage of both private and commercial boats.

[-]

Granite_burner@reddit

Agreed. And as I recall there was quite a bit of marine traffic in that channel, all the way across. Biggest advantage of altitude might be giving additional time for SAR to activate. I’m sure there’s enough resources both in flight and on the sea that response time will be pdq, although not instantaneous and not guaranteed to successfully locate individuals in the water. Obviously the closer to shore the better. And closer to mainland means closer to more resources.

Makes me wonder, if engine started running rough during the crossing, how long is returning to mainland more attractive than continuing to KAVX?

[-]

Thatgliderpilot@reddit

Guess that tracks with about an 8.5 mile glide. We’ve got a lake I regularly fly over/skirt around that is anywhere from 26-40km wide where I usually fly so I have to fly down to the 26km wide ish part when it’s not frozen so I can even make it over in the little single I fly.

[-]

Thatgliderpilot@reddit

Thank you! Very helpful to picture it all.

[-]

JSTootell@reddit

Ditching is always a part of my plan crossing to/from Catalina. I think we were only at 6500' in the 172 when I flew there with my 70 year old CFI.

[-]

BillySpacs@reddit

A guy from my club flew at 1500 agl (awl?) both ways and someone in the general message board called it out saying bad adm. Catalina in a single engine piston feels like a mild risk at minimum to me. Not that you can’t do it but you better prep well if you plan to (and fly high)

[-]

ApolloAiRobotic@reddit

Such a bummer. Based on the ADS-B data, it seems like that plane really liked doing low flying along the back side of the island. I saw one pass at 175'. My guess is an engine issue with no time to troubleshoot. I'm surprised they didn't ditch in the water. Probably trying to pop over and make it to the golf course and didn't clear the mountain.

Crazy the speculation here though. You can just look up the tail number and see it's not an Academy plane.

Want to see a company plane, check out N248FS who apparently boggies over there immediately and starts a search.

[-]

Fiat_Alfa_Romeo_Guy@reddit

I was flying to KLGB today from KTOA and the conditions seemed fine it was 10sm vis just smoggy/hazy I doubt marine layer had a hand.

Coming from an aviation safety background Sling has had several incidents in recent years and for an operation as large as sling is having a reactive safety culture in 2026 is appalling. I have talked to former Sling instructors that have told me that it wasn’t uncommon to be way under legal VFR day fuel minimums, for example.

My prayers and condolences go out to the victims families and friends. This is a tragedy and I hope that Sling can incorporate a proactive approach to aviation safety in the near future not just for their sake but for all those who fly to and from KTOA.

[-]

Fly3rBoi@reddit

I average 3.8gph on my sling, I highly doubt anyone is skirting the edge on fuel minimums on a sling…

[-]

joshthsu@reddit

I fly at Sling and work as a CFI at a flight school next door. Sling instructors take too much fuel most of the time. The fuel burn is 3.5 gallons per hour and they fill up tanks for even short flights. It’s almost impossible to be under vfr minimums because the EFIS warning light will go on when you have under like 1.5 hours of fuel left.

[-]

fly_ingmachine@reddit

I call bullshit

[-]

Ok-Weekend9016@reddit

sky was clear they loved flying low (below 800’ for some reason

[-]

DavidTR2305@reddit

The comment about being under fuel minimums is bull shit. I used to fuel planes there for a couple years and never saw a plane with less than day vfr minimums. The lowest i ever saw was 3 a side. Which is over an hour of flight time at high power setting

[-]

FormalPalpitation643@reddit

So horrible to see this. I have some strong opinions about Sling but that can wait.

[-]

SatisfactionVisual86@reddit

Care to share ? They seem like a cool concept but maybe not well engineered? Just curious

[-]

HolyitsaGoalie@reddit

Im curious what your strong opinions are?

Slings are incredibly nice airplanes. I’ve toured the factory in Torrence and in South Africa. I have flown almost 400 hours TSI and the high wing. Also some in the sling 2. They are built very well from the factory and are one of the best flying airplane I’ve ever flown.

[-]

Impressive_Jury_2211@reddit

But they have a lot of issues, I fly them my self and had an emergency landing about 2 months ago I believe this was after their back to back engine out emergency landings 4 months ago

[-]

joshthsu@reddit

The back to back engine outs were due to fuel mixture, not a mechanical issue

[-]

Beginning-Ad744@reddit

In the flightaware history there is a VERY similar flight about 10 days before the accident. Where the aircraft flew to Catalina (at only 2000' AGL!!) and then flew low around the island for a few minutes before landing. Wonder if this was something that the pilot did regularly but just went bad this time?

[-]

Otherwise-Abalone535@reddit

I’m in sling pilot academy, I was actually airborne in the long beach practice area when their ELT popped. Didn’t hear about it until we landed. Turns out I believe they lost about 3000 feet in 3 minutes. Scary, another reminder that this is a very real thing to do and aviation is not to be taken lightly. Stay safe out there folks!

[-]

Deepest condolences to those affected. Aircraft was a Sling based at KTOA.

Please downvote this comment until it collapses.

Questions about this comment? Please see this wiki post before contacting the mods.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. If you have any questions, please contact the mods of this subreddit.