Mystery wreck. Can anyone identify this aircraft?

This is the type H cockpit, earlier could well have different columns

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Navion-Rangemaster-H/1015483/&sid=1d8a9316ed5c1a466e31ec4529848ddf

Two blades if memory serves. Tricky to see though, as the lower nose is rammed into the seabed.

The pictures seem to suggest a 3 blade prop. Is that correct?

Kenneth, it seems you were spot on. Thanks everyone – I just received the following from someone at navionx.com:
“It appears that there may have been a center post in the windshield, which would make it a G model Rangemaster.”
So…. confirmed then.

Okay, I’m getting more and more convinced that this is a Rangemaster. On examining the photos closer I think I can make out the profile of the two nose lights just below the air intake apertures on the cowling. They’re almost completely buried in the rocks, but I think that is what they are. Clearest is on the bottom right image.

Thanks Al, that’s actually me on another forum. (At the time I was looking for a WW2 era aircraft.) My daughter’s memory is not photographic however – and I recall the interior being pretty trashed and overgrown. Wish I had sketched it out at the time. If anyone out there can add any more detail about this wreck it would be most welcome.

Found a description of the control column on the web. Not sure if it fits
the Navion’s, but someone may recognise it…
“Re: Can anyone identify this aircraft wreck?
Hey,thanks for that. No visible markings on this plane, and both wingtips and most of the tail assembly missing. My daughter has just chipped in – (she snorkelled it with me last August) and said that the control column was like a u shape with a bar across near the bottom of the u. I should have taken a picture of the cockpit interior, but no waterproof camera to hand. All of my websearch, and I can’t find one light low-wing single with a door in that position. A couple of people said that a fishing boat had dragged it into the harbour in its nets, but …. (and this is typical of Greece) nobody could tell me when or who.”

Thanks, best fit yet! I think it looks most like this model – G I0520 (it has a division between the front windscreens, which some seem to lack.)
http://www.navionforsale.com/gallery/
Only reservations are – size of the first windows on either side seem a bit larger than on the wreck pictures (it could just be foreshortening perspective through the water though.) The door profile certainly fit the bill. I have pinged the pictures off to www.navionx.org Maybe they can give me a model/year. How would I go about getting an accident report from Greece I wonder?

Kenneth……….

Reckon you may have cracked it. Have checked photos of Rangemasters and they all have left doors. Cockpit/windscreen shape is right too……

Now any accident reports for Rangemasters in Greece, unless the a/c has been dumped there, of course?

Planemike

Navion Rangemaster?

Piper are singularly unhelpful…..

“Dear Sir: Very sorry, but the photos are not clear enough to determine what aircraft this may be. Piper Aircraft does not always get accident reports on aircraft that are International registered and there is not enough information to investigate further.

Regards,
Customer Services
Piper Aircraft, Inc.”

Nobody wants to talk about some wrecked product I suppose.

JBoyle,I had a look some Meyers 200 images and it is similar in some ways, but this wreck goes pretty much straight back at the spine, where the Meyer has a sort of bubble cockpit. And as you say …. door on the wrong side.

I havent read all these, so sorry if its been mentioned – its not a Piper Malibu, is it?

No. It has one door, left rear.

Come on, it’s only 9 posts…you can read them. It’s not like XH558 thread…. 🙂

I havent read all these, so sorry if its been mentioned – its not a Piper Malibu, is it?

If it has a left door, it’s not a Piper, Mooney, Bonanza…

The cowl looks like a Piper though.

It’s rare, but it could be a Meyers 200…but it too only has a right door.

Thanks TonyT, it does look much more like the Pa32-60 or Saratoga than anything else I have seen. Door is definitely on the left though…. I snorkelled around it and can confirm that the images are not flipped. I reckon even with the cockpit roof crushed down a bit – that couldn’t really explain the differences between the window division shapes. The front windscreen panel shapes do come to a kind of point at the bottom outside corner, and window divider elements are fairly wide too.
True, I have become obsessive about identifying this aircraft – and it is driving me nuts.
A proper Mystery.

Not a 24 as you do not have the distance between the screen and eng bay, also a flat 6 lycoming in it, so would go for a Pa 32-260 or a lance or a saratoga or similar, the nose cowl is Piper in shape, neither the Rockwell Commander, Socata, or Mooney types have similar and a myrid of other possiblilities, door post and could simply be due to the crushing of the aircraft Are you sure the door is on the left and not the images flipped?, also the long nose is the key to solving it, most simply have the cowls directly in front of the screen, hence the first suggestion.

http://www.aviastar.org/pictures/usa/piper_pa-32.jpg

Thanks everyone. Kenneth yes, that’s what I thought (just reviewed an image search on Piper PA24.) Door is on the wrong side? Also the window configuration isn’t like any of the Piper images I found. The divider between the front screen and the first side window is an inverted triange shape. Scratching my head still……

The large photograph and the one in the lower right-hand corner of the other set (where I count three cylinders > 6-cylinder engine) seem to show a door opening on the left-hand side (only?), something which I can’t fit onto any Piper, Mooney or Beech types…. :confused:

Piper PA24 Comanche would be my guess.

Moggy

Loads about it on the net – seems the low-wing, four-seater ditched off Meganissi a few years ago, and was netted by a local who brought it itshore.
You often see stuff like that in Greece – I was diving there once, and thought I’d found a sunken hoard of gold coins. I managed to get one ashore, and it was a small denomination modern coin which had been cemented to the rocks to give the tourists something to gawk at.
If pushed, I’d go for a Piper Comanche with its cabin roof stoved in…