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Ditching accidents, life rafts, jackets and equipment, training and related discussion

Water survival training. Does it Make sense?

I came across a website of a training organization, which offers a water Survival training for a reasonable price.

I fly to the UK once in a while and it would be a comforting idea to know what to do when you have to ditch.

Would it make sense to do such a training? Has anyone done such a training? Was it worth while?

jkv
EHEH

jkv wrote:

Has anyone done such a training?

We have to do it every so and so many years.

jkv wrote:

Was it worth while?

Difficult to say. It shows you that you can stay afloat wearing a life vest for some time and climb (with some difficultiy!) into a life raft. In a swimming pool with 22 degree warm water, no waves and no wind. It also shows you that the space inside a six person life raft is very limited and even with three people on board it is very crowded already.

jkv wrote:

Would it make sense to do such a training?

Yes, in so far as it shows you how limited your chances will be. And in order to grab the little chance you have, you really need some training. Otherwise your chances will be zero. I learned from these courses that the top priority must be not to get myself into that situation in the first place. No extended flights over water in a single, no close-to-the-limit-of-the-range flying in anything else.

EDDS - Stuttgart

I’ve done the Helo Dunker course, which is the beginning of the water survival topic. It was done by the Hellenic Navy. Since we have a lot of water in Greece I found it very interesting. We were taught what to do in order to egress the aircraft, what to look for, how to put our hands etc and then we did all that in a helicopter mock airframe (sitting in the cockpit) while it was submerged normally, upside down, day and night, in different scenarios, eg egress from your side, the other side or the cabin. Then we did a mock helicopter rescue, life vest underwater demos etc. What I also learned is that if you do certain things a ditching is survivable. I think everybody should take it, GA passengers too. Also it would be nice to retake it every 2 years or so, but they are a bit pricey.

LGMT (Mytilene, Lesvos, Greece), Greece

We did one too, before we crossed the Atlantic (for obvious reasons ;-) Ours was in Germany and it was very much like what atmilatos describes – not in calm but rather warm water. I’m not really sure how much it would help in case we would really need it but it certainly was very interesting.

EDFM (Mannheim), Germany

I too did one, a few years ago. But it didn’t involve a dunker. On balance, I’d say it was worth it, but not overly realistic, as it was a nice warm swimming pool, not like what I’m likely to experience in the seas around here!

I’ve alreadys had an interest in sea survival and ditching as it scrare the life out of me. So I’d done a lot of reading on the subject already. As a result, much of the classroom material wasn’t new to me.

The two things that did stick in my mind though, were the helicopter winching demo (becuase it gave me some idea to know what’s expected of me, and what it would be like to be winched up) and the other one was the raft entry.

The raft entry was most interesting. The raft had an inflatable step. We were in a nice warm swiming pool, and almost everyone FAILED to get into it. The inflatable step submerged as soon as most people stood on it. I being small managed better than most and by putting my foot closest to the raft (so smallest posible lever on the step) managed to gain entry unassisted. But this was true for probably less than 10% of the group. A bit of an eye opener that you might not be able to get entry into your properly inflated raft!

The other thing that I noticed, was just how high the walls of the raft seem when you’re floating in the water looking up at them. To all intents and purposed, they might as well have been castle walls, and I in the moat! There is no way that you’d get into a raft without a plan in advance! That plan will depend on what aids your raft has to gain entry. You really need to know this before needing to get in. That has always given me pause for thought!

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Thank you for your info. I can understand that a swimming pool is not the most realistic scenario, but I would say it is better than having no training at all.

I never heard about any private pilots taking such a course before (except professional pilots).

It sounds like it is worth while spending some money on this. Any suggestions (other than the one I found in Riga)?

jkv
EHEH

I have been toying with an idea of taking a real-life training: ideally, find an airframe that’s about to be scrapped due to expiration but otherwise OK, strip it of anything valuable and not immediately necessary for a short flight (possibly putting in some weights to maintain proper balance), and air-tow it over a natural body of water for ditching (with the proper paperwork from the competent authority, of course). This will obviously be an expensive operation, but I hope it’s possible to offset the costs at least partially by producing a video of it, whether for purely artistic or safety training purposes. Any ideas how to pull if off are welcome. @achimha and @Pilot_DAR, I suspect you may be able to suggest something.

LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

Interesting idea, but too dangerous i guess. You will never get insurance. You can just aswell jump from a boat into the Mediterranean with a vest and the raft … that will simulate most of it. You need to get out of the airplane, sure, but you can never simulate all scenarios anyway (Cessna, Piper ..,)

We just need to convince a raft company to sponsor it …

Last Edited by Flyer59 at 23 Aug 15:49

I did this helicopter under water thing before going to oil rigs (along with all kinds of other rescue/survival stuff). I didn’t pay anything for it, so I guess it was worth it. But, surviving in the North Atlantic requires a real survival suit, without it, you will surely die. Depending on where you are flying (temperature in the water), I would say a survival suit, possibly a raft also, is a better investment than a course.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

jkv,

AOPA Germany organizes this twice a year. It takes place also not too far from NL; near Bremen.

See here.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany
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