Ibra – true. You would possibly stand more chance in a Cirrus with a personal survival suit, personal ELT, and raft, if you had to come down on the water so in those circumstances a single might have the edge actually. Especially in the channel if you can get out the aircraft even at night and have a beacon and can survive hypothermia for a few hours there is so much shipping and other assets that you will probably be picked up.
The very capable PC12 has had icing related incidents but not with professional crew, possibly. (There maybe a Canadian incident non fatal with professional crew)
Night IMC operations are very routine and it enjoys an excellent safety record. The Australian Flying Doctors, RCMP and State Department have concluded it is as good if not better than the twin turboprops.
RobertL18C wrote:
twin turboprops
Do you really mean that? MEP maybe..
…and the old TBM 700 icing accident:
https://www.flyingmag.com/news/tbm-700-crash-new-jersey-kills-five
Ibra wrote:
I don’t think a fresh new PC12 or SR22 fit the bill neither, tough I have seen few flying at night IFR > FL150 with sensible crossings (via LYD or DVR) this would have minimized the risk a lot, better to speak to engineers if you think any of the SEP/SET around are designed for 3h in imc/ice/water/night/winter even certification guys will not be happy to demonstrate that for you (marketing guys, owners and ferry pilots will tell you it can )
I think this mission would have been sensible / “fit the bill” in both a PC12 & a SR22. Flying this route at FL170 (possible in SR22, FL250 in SR22T) would have given the pilot ample time to communicate intentions with someone. My standard practice over open water is to have one of my GPS’s constantly showing exact coordinates (yes radar should have you as well but still).
The possibility of having time to troubleshoot, declare intentions, giving relatively precise coordinates, preparing the cabin for ditching/evac, activating PLB would arguable increase survival chances significantly. Also, the SR22 has a parachute which can be a huge benefit on water landings. Removing all/most forward velocity decreases chances of break-up on impact. People have CAPS landed a Cirrus in the ocean and walked out onto the wing to “get into” the life-raft.
Not saying I’d ever want to be in any of these situations but I do think the risk can be calculated and thus making such a mission sensible.
Turbine = power to climb out of ice.
Piston = you need to be above the ice before you reach it. And if you reach it turn around and land, not descend in good hope towards and icy body of water.
I flew over the channel in a new turbo cirrus, in vmc, under ifr, during daylight in November and onbord there was a PLB, life vests, delorme inreach iridium tracker and most importantly a „real“ liferaft (not the 1000 euro crap unsuitable for anything other than playing in a pool). A shagged out malibu, at night, under vfr with a PPL gives me the creeps :(
I would be interested in the reason that supposedly the second pilot did not go on the flight.
Freezing to death in the channel, what a shitty way to go :(
Snoopy wrote:
a „real“ liferaft
Any chance you can link/quote any “real” life-rafts. Not saying I disagree just want to compare to current to see I’m not being foolish 
.
TimR wrote:
Flying this route at FL170 (possible in SR22, FL250 in SR22T) would have given the pilot ample time to communicate intentions with someone
…and would have kept the ascent and most of the cruise VMC and out of ice, with a possibility of icing during the descent.
We do not know if ice was a factor on the flight, but three known facts are:
1-Climb to FL150 and subsequent cruise would have been mostly VMC and at OAT<-20C: low chance of icing
2-Cruising mid-channel at 5000ft they had a high chance of IMC and around -5C : increased chances of icing.
3-The pilot requested a descent from 5000ft to about 2000ft slightly North of Guernsey.
It has been discussed before that the most likely reason for the latter descent was weather, definitely IMC, but perhaps also icing. Descent may or may not have put them VMC (not very relevant for visual ref in those circumstances, but meaningful for icing), but OAT and even more TAT would have been closer to 0C and perhaps slightly positive at or around 2000ft, so out of ice and a good reason to descend if you are not willing/able to climb.
Snoopy wrote:
Turbine = power to climb out of ice.
Piston = you need to be above the ice before you reach it. And if you reach it turn around and land, not descend in good hope towards and icy body of water.
As to the former, does that mean you would consider it sensible or even safe to fly or even plan a flight at 5000ft over the Channel in IMC at -5C at night in winter in say a fully serviceble and well equipped TBM or even a 737?
As to the latter, in this case there was clear wx at departure and for the climb, which makes the SET/SEP factor more meaningless for deciding on the safe course of action for planning this flight.
TimR wrote:
I think this mission would have been sensible / “fit the bill” in both a PC12 & a SR22. Flying this route at FL170 (possible in SR22, FL250 in SR22T) would have given the pilot ample time to communicate intentions with someone. My standard practice over open water is to have one of my GPS’s constantly showing exact coordinates (yes radar should have you as well but still).
The direct route is still a big stretch for SAR guys and require French/CI/UK coordination: unless you fly an accurate track and communicate exact position of your impact few helis pilots will stretch their legs beyond 300km in zig-zags with water/imc/night (or will be constrained to search for less than 30min before returning to refuel again), the other reliable alternative is to send boats, for this an sr22 + raft may work very will but still it will be a slow search and rescue (it will not looks like the videos of an SR22 pulling the CAPS while running out of fuel in clear vmc/day, while the pilot walkout dry, he called 3h before with his exact ditching position, still was rescue by a nearby chip rather than helis 
)
