Ray goes swimming... again...

[Horatio Leafblower]

According to the world's most reliable source of aviation news, Boyd Munro Esq;

Ray Clamback, husband of AIR SAFETY AUSTRALIA member number 182, has ditched in the Pacific some 600 miles South of Hawaii.

His position is approx N0850 W15635

PONL Los Angeles is reportedly on its way to pick him up.

All the above information is utterly unreliable.

AMSA is being extremely co-operative.

Ray needs all the help we can give him. If you can give practical help please e-mail me on [email protected]

I am trying to get a charter vessel from Honolulu just in case PONL Los Angeles knows nothing of this or does not get there for whatever reason.

If anyone who receives this is in the maritime business and knows the phone number of PONL Los Angeles please give it to me or call PONL Los Angeles and find out where they are and what they intend.

Below appears the news from the Honolulu Advertiser.

Cheers,

BOYD MUNRO
AIR SAFETY AUSTRALIA


Keep treading water Ray :ok:

[Kaptin M]

CNN has confirmed that a rescue ship is on the way to a downed pilot, and should be arriving there shortly.

Good one, Ray - AGAIN!! (How many times does this make it?)

[gaunty]

The professionals have got it under control.


Subject: RAY CLAMBACK
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 16:24:57 +1000

We learnt about four hours ago that Ray had ditched a C182 about 600NM south of Hawaii enroute to Christmas Island. Believe engine problems. Travelling in company with another C182 and a Caravan. Pilot of the other C182 saw him get out of the aircraft and trying to get into a life raft. The Rescue Coordination Centre in Hawaii responded. An aircraft is now on top Ray's position. Reported that he appears to be safe but extent, if any, injuries unknown. A surface vessel has been diverted to pick Ray up. Expect it to arrive in about six hours.

We have informed next of kin in Australia. Wife is at Christmas Island awaiting further news.

Also informed Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade re potential consular actions.

Hopefully, another happy ending.


David McBrien
Aviation Adviser
Australian Search and Rescue (AusSAR)

P: (02) 6279 5744
E: [email protected]

[7gcbc]

Hope he's all ok, a quick google reveals that this is # 3.

What age is he now ?

[tsnake]

According to AAP, he's 67.
Latest reports indicate USCG C-130 dropped a liferaft to himand a container ship is on the way to pick him up.
His second swim in recent times, he also went swimming in November, 1999 between the US west coast and Hawaii.
Will Aminta let him ever go again?

[itchybum]

Ocean rescue for Australian pilot
SMH
October 6, 2004 - 1:54AM

An Australian pilot who trod water for hours in the Pacific after his small plane crashed, and then spent part of the night bobbing in a life raft, was rescued by a container ship early today.

Shipping officials said Ray Clamback, 67, was doing well after his plane went down about 1,200km south of the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

It is the second time in five years that Mr Clamback of Sydney aircraft ferry company Clamback and Hennessy has had to ditch in the Pacific - and be rescued the same way.

Mr Clamback was ferrying a light Cessna 182 when he was forced to ditch it about 885 kilometres north-east of Kiritimati Island in Kiribati in the central Pacific.

A US Coast Guard statement said an accompanying Cessna saw the plane ditch but did not see Mr Clamback get out of it.

The statement said the second plane circled the debris field for nearly eight hours until a US Coast Guard C130 Hercules arrived overhead and dropped a life raft. It then continued on to Kiritimati.

Advertisement
Advertisement
It said Mr Clamback was seen to clamber into it but no word was received about his condition.

Chief Petty Officer Marsha Delaney, a Coast Guard spokeswoman in Honolulu, said Mr Clamback would stay on the raft until he could be picked up by a container ship that had been on its way to the crash site to help in the search.

She said Mr Clamback was the only person aboard the Cessna that was travelling in tandem with the second Cessna aircraft from Hilo on Hawaii's Big Island en route to Pago Pago in American Samoa, when the pilot made a distress call.

The route from Hawaii to American Samoa covers a distance over the Equator of about 3700 kilometres with virtually no islands or airstrips in between.

Kiribati, which straddles the Equator and the International Dateline, is made up of 33 atolls and a single high island. It has about 100,000 residents.

In November 1999, Mr Clamback and co-pilot Shane Wiley were on a similar ferry mission when their aircraft had to ditch with a failing engine short of Hawaii after leaving California.

The pair spent 10 hours in the ocean before being rescued by the US Coast Guard.

Mr Clamback's company website says he has crossed the Pacific Ocean delivering aircraft more than 250 times.

Agencies

[Bevan666]

Well it appears Ray Clamback has done it again and survived. This time he's ditched a Cessna 182.

At least this time he didnt lose is raft. I wonder when he will go for the hat-trick.

From The Age (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/06/1096949522613.html)

An Australian pilot who trod water for hours in the Pacific after his small plane crashed, and then spent part of the night bobbing in a life raft, was rescued by a container ship yesterday.

Shipping officials said Ray Clamback, 67, was doing well after his plane went down about 1,200km south of the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

He was spotted yesterday evening by the crew of a C-130 airplane from Honolulu that had been searching for him for about seven hours, said US Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Marsha Delaney.

He climbed into a life raft dropped from the C-130, and about nine-and-a-half hours later he was picked up by the crew of the container ship P&O Nedlloyd Los Angeles, which was on its way from Los Angeles to Melbourne, Delaney said.

Crew members reported Clamback was "safe and sound and in good shape," said a spokeswoman for the P&O Nedlloyd shipping company in London, who wouldn't give her name.

The spokeswoman said the ship was expected to reach Melbourne by October 12, and that Clamback would go from there to his home in Sydney.

Delaney said Clamback was the only person aboard the Cessna 182, which was flying with a second Cessna from Hilo on the island of Hawaii en route to Pago Pago, American Samoa.

The pilot of the second Cessna circled the debris field until the C-130 arrived, then continued on his way, Delaney said

[The Messiah]

Hero GA pirate does it again!

Surely he's too old for that sh1t??

[Icarus2001]

Glad to hear he is okay. I just heard him on the radio saying that his liferaft was upside down and he could not get it up the right way. Perhaps his ELT that he was betting his life on was in the liferaft or fitted to the sinking aircraft? Either way it appears the USCG had to use FLIR to locate a head in the water (not easy). A job well done.

A free bit of advice for any pilot contemplating flying a single engine aircraft over remote areas or large oceans. Have your bloody ELT attached to YOU. In your top pocket, around your waist whatever!
How much quicker and easier locating him would have been with a $600 406 mHz ELT attached to him! An ELT in the back, in your Nav bag or in the tailcone may be of no use to you.

ELTs save lives. USE THEM.

[Frank Burden]

Icarus2001, heard 406 MHz ELTs are now fitted to new B747, are they any better?

Cranky Franky:ugh:

[Icarus2001]

Yes they are much better.
First of all the signal they transmit is digital not analogue and so other data can be added such as position information from a GPS or FMS.
Secondly they are uniquely coded so that when one transmits a signal the RCC that recives the signal knows who owns that beacon and which aircraft, ship, individual is the regsitered user.
Thirdly the satellites that pick up 406 beacons are geostationary which means unless you are near the poles as soon as you turn on the beacon it will be detected. However position information may not be available unless it has an internal GPS or an orbiting satellite picks up the signal and can use doppler shift to locate the source. At least someone will know the beacon is on immediately.

More information is available here...http://beacons.amsa.gov.au/

and remember February 2009 is cut off for 121.5/243 ELTs/EPIRBs etc. Start budgeting to buy a new one!

[Desert Flower]

Apparently when the plane went down it happened so quickly he didn't have time to get the raft out. He spent 7 hours swimming until a raft was dropped to him. He then had to get it upright & get into it, which after all his swimming was NOT easy! When the U.S. CoastGuard vessel picked him up he had to be assisted onto it as he could barely stand. He expects to arrive in Melbourne on the 15th of this month. If Aminta's got any sense she should tell him "Ray, you're grounded!"

DF.

[Icarus2001]

Apparently when the plane went down it happened so quickly he didn't have time to get the raft out.
Am I alone in thinking that this is totally predictable?:confused:

[itchybum]

Crash Drama Pilot: It's About Time I Quit
October 6, 2004 - 4:32PM

Having twice cheated death after being forced to ditch a plane in the Pacific, Australian pilot Ray Clamback thinks now may be a good time to consider retirement.

The 67-year-old veteran is lucky to be alive, again, after spending more than 16 hours in the ocean, far from land, before being plucked from the sea by a passing freighter.

Clamback was flying a new Cessna 182 from California to Australia when the engine seized about 7.30am (AEST) yesterday, forcing him to ditch his plane in the Pacific, 1,200 km south of Hawaii.

The ocean swell flipped the plane over on impact, forcing Mr Clamback to escape through the upturned wreckage before it sank.

With just a life jacket and little debris to cling to, the Sydney pilot faced an uncertain fate.

Just two hours beforehand Mr Clamback, his wife Aminta (Aminta) Hennessy and senior flying instructor Lyn Gray took off in three planes from Hilo in Hawaii for the next stage of their journey to American Samoa.

When Mr Clamback went down, Ms Gray watched helplessly but continued to circle over the ditch zone for several hours, giving a US Coast Guard Hercules C-130 crew accurate coordinates to work with.

Eight hours after the ditching, rescuers spotted Mr Clamback - "a little object" - in the ocean, about four nautical miles from where he had gone down.

A liferaft, with food, water and blankets, was dropped to Mr Clamback but it would be almost another nine hours before the P&O Nedlloyds container ship, Los Angeles, would finally hoist him from the water to safety.

The ship is expected to sail into Melbourne on October 15.
Mr Clamback has made the trans-Pacific flight more than 200 times but in 1999, with co-pilot Shane Wiley, he spent 10 hours in the Pacific when their plane's engine failed after leavign Hawaii and they ditched in the ocean.

A badly sunburnt, exhausted but relieved Mr Clamback today admitted he was now considering retirement.

"I hope I never have to try another ditching," Mr Clamback told Sydney radio 2UE from the Los Angeles.

"It wasn't a good ditching ... I hit a wave that was just a little high for me (and) as I touched down the plane turned upside down.

"But I'm going to consider the whole thing and I'm now 67 and it's about time I retired."

Mr Clamback said he knew his chances of survival were slight, but previous experience gave him faith.

"I knew my chances of getting picked up were as good as they could be with the US Coast Guard, but I knew it was also a big gamble and I'm certainly relieved to be onboard this ship, I can tell you," he told ABC Radio.

He praised the crew of the Los Angeles for managing to stop the massive ship beside him, and send a crewman down to winch him out of the raft.

"It was awesome when it came up beside me because they only have to make a bit of a mistake and run over you, but they were magnificent," he said.

Despite prompting two costly American search and rescue missions, US Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Marsha Delaney said Mr Clamback would not be slugged with the $US280,000 ($A387,000) bill.

"We do not charge for a rescue, only if it was a hoax would we ask to be reimbursed," CPO Delaney said.

Instead, she said it was a miracle he had been found alive at all.
"We think he is very lucky and we think we are darn lucky that we were able to find him," she said.

"When the C-130 crew arrived on scene they didn't see any debris around him, it didn't look like he had been holding onto anything so he had been treading water on his own for that whole time."

Mr Clamback's son, Wayne, 39, doubted the incident would fast-forward his father's retirement plans but he thought his stepmother, Ms Hennessy, may have different views on that.

"I can't imagine that this will stop him," he said.

"It didn't stop him last time and he loves what he does and there is not many people that have a job that they love - so I would say that he will keep going," Wayne Clamback said.

AAP

[Matt-YSBK]

I hope i speak for all at Alpha Flying and hope to see you filling our planes again Soon.

Matt.

[OzExpat]

Onya Ray, practice makes purfect mate! :D Seriously though, really glad that it has all ended happily! :ok:

[luna landing]

Well done Lyn, Can't have been much fun circling that part of the ocean for hours wondering how Ray was.

On a lighter note, how did she know which C182 to choose?

[OzExpat]

On a lighter note, how did she know which C182 to choose?
I don't think that would've been an issue luna. Single-engined aeroplanes seem to know when Ray's aboard... ;)