Pilatus Aircraft Ltd.

Well, Rob, tell us about our next final report.

About midday on December the 14th of 2023, a Pilatus PC-12 on an IFR flight plan was destroyed when it crashed into a remote area in West Texas, about 215 miles to the southwest of Fort Worth.

The accident killed the pilot and the passenger, as well as three pets that were on board.

The aircraft had departed Jacksonville, Florida, approximately four and a half hours earlier, destined for San Angelo, Texas.

The board said contributing to this accident were the air traffic controller's failure to issue an appropriate intercept angle for the final approach course, as well as the controller's failure to advise the pilot that vectors he was getting would take him across the final approach course and the pilot's entry of an incorrect heading into the autopilot.

So while inbound to San Angelo from the east, the pilot contacted approach and was told to expect vectors to the RNAV Runway 36.

At about 12:07, the Pilatus was flying a west heading when the controller told him to fly a heading of 230, and later updated that heading to 210.

At 12:16, the controller then issued another west heading, and a minute later said, "Turn right heading 030.

"Let's extend the nose by God knows what and chuck it on there," and then it all becomes a, looks a little bit-

Pilatus PC-7 Porter-

Yeah, yeah

... we're looking at you.

I got to work with great manufacturers there too.

So I started with Embraer Executive Jets, and then, uh, wound up, um, uh, moving over to the Pilatus, uh, line, and, uh, uh, both Pilatus pilot and maintenance, and then, uh, Falcon Maintenance, uh, when I moved to Dallas.

And then I became the director of courseware design at FlightSafety, uh, which is, you know, we were doing kind of research and development on how to use immersive media, uh, specifically in the maintenance context.

So, um, I'm one of those, you know, strange pilot and mechanic people.

Well, let's get to our final reports.

This first one involves November 357 Hotel Echo, a Pilatus PC-12/47E that occurred in Recluse, Wyoming on July 26, 2024.

Unfortunately, all seven people aboard were killed.

The pilot and six passengers departed on a cross-country flight on an IFR flight plan with a planned refueling stop in Montana.

I'm going to do this.

Pilatus? Pilatus, right? There you go.

PC-21.

They had that at RC Fest, and they were flying it.

The chase itself, according to reporting from Aerotime, involved a teenager who was already running from law enforcement at speed when the vehicle left the road, breached the airport perimeter fence, and crossed onto airport property.

The car struck a Pilatus PC-12 belonging to Plainsense, one of the better-known fractional ownership operators in the northeastern United States.

The aircraft sustained significant damage.

Now, nobody was killed.

That's worth saying clearly.

But this incident sits at the intersection of several things pilots and airport users should care about, and I want to walk through each of them.

First, Plainsense and the Pilatus PC-12.

If you're not familiar with Planesense, they operate out of Portsmouth and have built their program almost entirely around the Pilatus PC-12.

You bought smart.

You bought a Pilatus PC-12 or a TBM-700 back when they were the right airplane for the mission, the right number for the budget.

And now, a decade or more later, the newer models are out there.

Faster.

I'm Tower on Radio Hangar, and today we're going to talk about a company that says you don't have to.

This week at Oshkosh 2026, Blackhawk Modifications put two aircraft on the ramp that made a lot of turboprop owners stop walking and start asking questions.

a Pilatus PC-12 and a TBM-700.

Both of them modified, both of them, according to Flying Magazine, performing at a level that their logbooks would never suggest.