ToniK wrote:
On a more practical note, I couldn’t imagine flying with my small kids in a PA46 or P210 over seas. Simply too bad odds.
How do you recon the odds of an emergency landing in a forest? From everything I’ve seen, they’re considerably worse than for ditchings. For someone based in Finland or Sweden (like you and me) that should be a major consideration.
Never having ditched but doing extensive research as well as a hands on ditching course. The same one given to the US military, US paramilitary and Oil Rig folks with actual in cockpit immersion and flipping. I can tell you that without a really good raft which you tie to the airplane and which has a boarding platform your kidding yourself if you think you can get into to it. Lived on an Island and did a lot of over water flights 30+ yrs and never lost anyone that I knew into the water. So it is rare. However flying Trans Atlantic I just want to put on the suspenders in addition to the belt I normally wear. Also bought a constant wear Switlik immersion suit. Anyone flying from GB without one is risking a lot if they go down and survive the ditching. My raft is a Winslow with canopy, platform, and double bottom but only weighs 42 lbs. It does float.
The thing to do which I was told by my primary instructor is to take an object like a shoe and crack the door open. Otherwise it may jam on impact. You ave to wait until the cockpit fills up enough to be able to open the door. Save you energy until that happens.
Also having a 4 point harness is critical. Those standard aircraft harness wont do.
The hardest part is determining the wave heights. You have the long swells and the short wave crests and they usually dont align. Short waves may be a few meters high the same thing with the swells. The shorts are usually resulting from the wind and the longer swells from a farther source.
My feeling is that if the swells are huge as in you can spot them from 2000’ land parallel to them if the wind is under 25kts. Over that speed you have to deal with the short waves If the short waves are large which usually means high surface winds 25kts+ land into them since your forward speed will be much less.
Then there is luck.
At night its all pure luck unless you make a precautionary look see before the “Water Landing”. That means you have engine power.
Achim I would not rule out fuel starvation. On 210s its critical that plane be fueled on level ground with the spinner to ground clearance the correct distance. The last 5 gals in each tank be fueled slowly. Rocking the wings along the way to dislodge any air pockets. Its also important to make sure the vent check valve is working properly
I fill the Flint tips then after rocking the wings top off from the Flints to the mains.
The most important thing is to visually check and be there for the fueling.
I would be interested in hearing the pilots version then his wife’s.
How do you recon the odds of an emergency landing in a forest? From everything I’ve seen, they’re considerably worse than for ditchings.
Good point. But I think that clearings or even roads in forests are more common than islands in seas.
Jan think of boats and ships as Islands. Hopefully the lookout is not asleep.
C210_Flyer wrote:
The thing to do which I was told by my primary instructor is to take an object like a shoe and crack the door open. Otherwise it may jam on impact.
One take-away note from the discussion around this accident elsewhere is that you may want to open the door, then close the door handle again so that the door cannot be pushed shut by the water. I think in a similar accident in 2009 this worked as well for the pilot, not the passenger who had not lowered the handle again.
Have always wondered if it would make make any difference bringing a helmet for at least the pilot in case of emergency. Since the passenger could always put something soft etc in front as they did.
Jonas
@Airborne-Again That’s a difficult question. We see successful and not so successful emergency landings into trees. Same thing with ditching. Actually I was taught by my extremely experienced FI to opt for trees instead of water. I’m not so sure and it all depends.
But in general I do think some feasible way should always remain to save occupants lives after an emergency landing or ditching. Personally, I think kids have very poor chances of making it after ditching. Just too many things to go wrong and slim margins. A lot of course depends on the “kid”.
Based on accidents I am familiar with, I would choose water (near a shore if possible) over trees which nearly always smash up the aircraft. But that is based on carrying a life raft 100% of the time.
One exception I am familiar with was a UK syndicate with a Tripacer who got into an impossible situation in France (IMC meeting the ground) and chose to put the plane down on treetops. According to one of those I spoke to, it stayed there for a few seconds and then… crunch and it fell down through the branches, resulting in what is probably nowadays called minor injuries (a fair bit of hospital time though). That plane has a Vs of around 30kt.
Thats a pretty old article (1999) and maybe you are aware of it:
http://www.equipped.org/ditchingmyths.htm
According to that, about 90% of ditchings in small aircraft have been survived, in 92% some survived and in even a few more cases everybody got out but they drowned or succumbed to exposure.
According to this also most ditchings occur on beaches and the likes with 88% being survived.
I would say that those are pretty good odds compared to choosing a forest. But I have no direct stats to compare that to. I have encountered a lot of myth and old wife tales about ditchings, which sometimes seem simply pretty unfounded and on the other hand come from the quite different scenario of ditching in an airliner with quite different stall speeds and where egress is a major issue.
