Please can you jump out now, then I'll crash it.

[jollyrog]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7431857.stm

Evacuation before the forced landing.

[Brgsstm]

sounds like a bit of a hero there! :eek:

[TheGorrilla]

Given most parachutists great mistrust in pilots abilities to land aeroplanes I'm surprised they didn't all bail out of thier own accord.

[modelman]

Makes a lot more sense than the guy who bailed out of the Tiger Moth at height 2 feet:ugh: :rolleyes:(see May AAIB)

MM

[RJ Kanary]

"Captain goes down with his ship" is alive and well.Job well done by everyone. :)

[BackPacker]

"Captain goes down with his ship" is alive and well.

Of course well done to everybody concerned, but I think getting the parachutists out before the crash landing is not only safest for the parachutists but is also a very good idea for the pilot. First, the plane is lighter without those bodies, reducing sink rate and lowering stall speed, giving you more time and options. Plus, in a typical parachute plane, the parachutists sit on the floor and are not in any way restrained. In case of a crash landing, that's a lot of dead weight being thrown forward.

The only disadvantage I can see is that you've got to open the doors of the plane in order for the parachutists to bail out. This lessens the aerodynamic efficiency of the plane. Depending on whether the door can be closed afterwards or not, this might have a detrimental effect on the approach and landing.

A hero, in my very humble opinion, is somebody who places the interests of somebody else before his own interests in a dire situation. But in this case, the interests of the pilot and of the parachutists were exactly the same.

Nevertheless, well done, once again, to all 'round.

[TheGorrilla]

I wonder if the pilot had had a parachute himself, would he have used it?

[Cobalt]

With en engine failure 7,000ft directly above an airfield I would hope any pilot would have a reasonable go at getting it on the runway and succeed without damage to life, limb, or aircraft; with a 99%+ chance of success.

Having said that, with the windscreen full of oil and hence poor forward visibility this is a more difficult propositon... so nothing of the above implies that I think that overshooting the runway was a bad job. Rule 1 of accident speculation: nobody of us was there...

[nh2301]

Pilots of skydive airplanes in the US are required to have parachutes of their own, I'd assume he took made the safer choice to land the airplane.

[QDMQDMQDM]

Had the parachutists at the Dunkeswell accident several years ago jumped from several thousand feet when the engine failed then the outcome may have been different. As the pilot, your first act of self-preservation should be to get them all out and so reduce your stall speed, improve manoeuvrability and extend glide range.

[SNS3Guppy]

I wonder if the pilot had had a parachute himself, would he have used it?


When flying jumpers, a parachute rig is worn. It's a single rig, generally speaking, with no reserve.

I've always worn my helmet to 1,000' AGL, then removed it for the climb to altitude. This is generally a safety precaution in the event of a rejected takeoff or low power failure with insufficient altitude to leave the airplane. Official recommendation for a low departure is to forget the main and open the reserve. The pilot doesn't have that choice.

There's no need for a pilot to jump following an engine failure, when one has a flyable airplane available.

I experienced an engine failure in a Cessna 182 once, after releasing some jumpers, and landed the airplane on a gravel strip, without incident.

The airplane in this case was a Cessna Caravan, which I've also flown with jumpers, and jumped many times. There's no significant glide penalty with the door open. Normal descents after putting jumpers out are at idle, with the door open (or removed, as the case may be).