Cessna Should Not Have Flown At That Altitude

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The crew should have bee aware of the altitude ban before takeoff, the Croatian Defence Ministry claims.

MOUNT VELEBIT, CROATIA - At the moment when the Cessna plane went missing from the radar, Croatian Ari Force had no aircrafts in the air space, the Croatian Defence Ministry responded, when asked if the craft should have come down to less than 6,500 feet due to the flight ban between 6,500 and 16,000 feet.

The search for the four-manned Cessna crew started on February 5. Poor weather conditions largely complicate the search, which are not favourable, despite the sky clearing up.

At the moment, three helicopters are searching the Mount Velebit reef.

One of the possible reasons why the Cessna plane went missing is that the pilot hit a peak, due to poor visibility, after the warning that it should not fly at the altitude of 8,500 feet, as the plane was lowered to 5,500 feet (1,675 metres) just before flying over the Vaganj Peak (1,756 metres).

Flight ban between 6,500 and 16,000 feet was supposedly issued out by the Croatian Defence Ministry, however, the ministry spokesperson Goran Gorsinic said the crew should have been informed about the ban by the air traffic control long before.

No airborne ministry planes when the Cessna went missing

- There are zones in Croatian air space reserved for the necessities of the Croatian Defence Ministry which are entered in all the charts and all air traffic participants are familiar with them. The ministry can announce a flight ban in these zones, according to its necessities. Such a ban is issued out according to regular procedure a dew days earlier and it is implemented by air traffic control. The flight ban was issued out for February 5, 2009 for the period from 8 hours to 15 hours, between 6,500 and 16,000 feet. We point out that at the moment when the plane went missing from the radar, the Croatian Air Force did not have an airborne craft – the Croatian Defence Ministry`s announcement claims.