From Dropzone.com (same thread, but different take; as in, "what kind of gear?" "what kind of airplane?" etc...
This is getting interesting. Given he was president of a company called Heritage Wealth Management, he might have been trying to check out. The plane on auto-pilot heading due south should have flown over the ocean until running out of gas. He makes a distress call and no plane would ever be found. He lives happily ever after on a tropical island somewhere....
except the plane crashed and gave it all away.
DOH!
http://www.cnn.com/...florida.plane.crash/
Police: Pilot made bogus distress call before plane crash
NEW: Police: Pilot Marcus Schrenker checked in to hotel under false name
NEW: Pilot reportedly told police in Alabama he was in a canoeing accident
FAA says investigators suspect pilot parachuted out of plane
Six-seater went down Sunday near Blackwater River in East Milton, Florida
(CNN) -- The pilot who signaled air traffic controllers that his windshield had imploded and that he was bleeding before his plane crashed faked the call and later checked into a hotel using a false name Monday, authorities said.
Authorities identified the pilot as Marcus Schrenker, 38, from Indiana. Authorities say they are looking for him.
"All indications now are that he made some type of false emergency call [and] abandoned the plane by parachute," said Sgt. Scott Haines of the Santa Rosa County, Florida, Sheriff's Office.
Haines said the pilot checked into a hotel in the Harpersville, Alabama, area under a false name.
Harpersville is 30 minutes east of Birmingham, Alabama, and about 223 miles north of Milton, Florida, near where the wrecked plane was found. iReport.com: Are you near the crash scene? Tell us what you've seen
Haines did not know the whereabouts of the pilot.
"I do not believe they have him in custody," he said.
Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office got a call at 2:26 a.m. from the Childersburg Police Department in Alabama saying that a white male, identified as Schrenker by his Indiana driver's license, approached a Childersburg officer at a store.
Schrenker, who was wet from the knees down and had no injuries, told the officer that he had been in a canoeing accident with friends, the Santa Rosa Sheriff's Office said in a news release.Schrenker had goggles that looked like they were made for "flying," according to the release.
The Childersburg police didn't know about the plane crash, so they took Schrenker to a nearby hotel, authorities said. When police found out about the crash, they went back to the hotel and entered Schrenker's room. He was not there, they said.
According to Santa Rosa authorities, Schrenker had checked in under a fake name, paid for his room in cash and "put on a black toboggan cap and ran into the woods located next to the hotel."
CNN could not immediately reach a representative for Schrenker. The phone number listed for his business address was disconnected. He does not have a home phone number listed.
He is listed online as president of an Indianapolis agency called Heritage Wealth Management, but no contact information for that agency was available. The address of the business is the same as the address associated with Schrenker's aircraft in aviation records.
Police in Harpersville told CNN they had no immediate comment. Federal investigators were helping in the probe.
Earlier Monday, federal investigators said they believed the pilot may have parachuted out of the Piper PA-36 aircraft before it crashed at 9:15 p.m. CT Sunday in a swampy area of Blackwater River in East Milton, Florida.
Military jets found the aircraft Sunday. The plane was lying upside down, its door open and the cockpit empty, according to Haines.
Kathleen Bergen, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said a "detailed review of radar data" and the fact that the plane had switched to autopilot suggested that the pilot might have parachuted.
The pilot was the only person aboard, authorities said.
On Sunday evening, the pilot contacted air traffic controllers and told them the plane's windshield had imploded and that he was bleeding profusely, Haines said.
That call came in when the aircraft was about 35 miles southwest of Birmingham, Alabama. Controllers tried to tell the pilot to divert the flight to Pell City, Alabama, but he did not respond. The plane appeared to have been put on autopilot around 2,000 feet, Haines said.
The plane was scheduled to land in Destin, Florida, authorities said.
Military jets that first spotted the wreckage described the cockpit as empty. Bergen said the cockpit was mostly intact and the door to the aircraft was open.
The corporate plane does not have an ejection feature, and the pilot did not have a parachute when he took off Sunday from Anderson Municipal Airport in Anderson, Indiana, airport manager Steve Darlington told CNN.
Darlington described the pilot as "accomplished" and said he owns "a couple of airplanes" and flies regularly.
Helicopters, planes, boats, and dogs and rescue crews were involved in searching the area.
