The Hudson River story dredged up crewroom banter from the 80's where someone reckoned a Herc was landed on water deliberately (during the testing phase?) with not wonderful results.

Any truth in it? The carrier landing don't count!

CG

I was told that a Brazilian Herc ditched after running out of fuel. The ditching was successful and it stayed afloat for a while.

Apparently all crew survived the ditching but by the time the rescue had been effected there had been one fatality; the Captain shot the Nav for getting them lost.

Don't know of authenticity but it's a good story anyhow!

I'm no expert on the piloting side of performing the ditching manoeuvre, but assuming it survived impact, the high-wing design means the fuselage would sit much lower in the water and probably tilted well to one side. Getting a full load of pax out of the top hatches would also be interesting.

N Joe

I was told that a Brazilian Herc ditched after running out of fuel. Columbian.

List of C-130 Hercules crashes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C-130_Hercules_crashes)

On 22 Nov 1996 a US (ANG?) C130, call sign King 56, crashed in the Pacific Ocean after all 4 engines failed and the crew attempted to ditch the aircraft. 10 of the 11 crew were killed when the aircraft broke up on impact with the water.

I recall at the time there was much discussion about water landings/ditching and that whilst there had been several attempts there had never been a successful one.

Columbian ditching in 1982: (http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19821016-0) Date: 16 OCT 1982

Type: Lockheed C-130B Hercules
Operator: Fuerza Aérea Colombiana
Registration: FAC1003
C/n / msn: 3572
First flight: 1960
Crew: Fatalities: / Occupants:
Passengers: Fatalities: / Occupants:
Total: Fatalities: 5 / Occupants: 13
Airplane damage: Written off
Airplane fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair)
Location: 330 km (206.3 mls) E off Cape May, NJ, USA (Atlantic Ocean)
Phase: En route (ENR)
Nature: Military
Departure airport: Terceira-Lajes AFB, Azores (TER/LPLA), Portugal
Destination airport: Bermuda-Kindley Field NAS (NWU), Bermuda

Narrative:

Ditched in Atlantic Ocean in 55kt winds after running out of fuel en route Azores-Bermuda due to navigation system failure; the Hercules remained afloat for 2 days.

http://www.spectrumwd.com/c130/image2/c130_690.jpg

Heard they had to deliberately sink the Columbian Herk as it drifted into the shipping lanes and posed a hazard. Could just be rumour to make a good story better - also heard the Nav died of lead poisoning. :}

Of course, there's also Jockey 14 - the AC-130H that crashed off the coast of Somalia in '94 or '95. The USAF made a training tape out of interviews of the surviving crew.

Ditching is not something I'm keen to try in the Mighty Hercules...

Just for the record - the country is ColOmbia, thus making the C130 ColOmbian.

Not such a good story with 5 fatalities. And the list of hull losses on Wikipedia is a tad sobering too....

Given the high wing, and the fact it ditched in the ocean when there was 55Kts of wind, I think 'only' 5 deaths was a very good result and showed excellent skills by the crew.

Lockheed did propose a flying boat C-130 and did model/tank tests; I think it was aimed at the Japan ASDF (MSDF?) which eventually bought the Shin-Meiwa US-1.

The Colombian deaths were all on the flight deck - so I am told. Survivors were down the back. apparently, the flight deck had a lot more than the 'standard' 4 crewmembers at impact.

Would i be correct in saying an RAF C130 ditched in the sea with Para's onboard, circa 1970's...??
Think i read a snippet somewhere years ago...!!

Mr Loader
To quote Wikipedia, are you thinking of this?


November 9, 1971 : An RAF C-130K, XV216, c/n 4243, from 24 Sqn crashed into the sea off Pisa with 46 Italian paratroopers onboard. There were no survivors.

Mr PW,

thats the one i think i heard about...

tried to google it, but i couldnt access google prior to my posting on subject..
sorry to hear no-one got out...

Farfrompuken,


shooting the Nav' sounds a tad harsh !

Then again, I can think of some people who should have been shot before they even boarded the aircraft...

I was in XV217, 34 years later dropping Italian paratroops into Pisa (Ex Ponteveccio).
We were told that it was the first time Italian troops had dropped into Italy from a UK aircraft since the crash and it felt a bit strange being in XV217 following in the footsteps of XV216.
Needless to say all went well.

I believe the captain of the Colombian Herk was the Chief of the Air Force.

Torpy is colombian?

I was a loadmaster on C-130's. This aircraft was pressurized, so seals aroung the doors and the cargo ramp were tight. There were exit hatches along the top so that a crew could exit the aircraft without opening the door, which would have swamped the plane quickly.

As to landing it on water, it had an essentially flat-bottomed fuselage and two sponsons, one over each main gear. I see no reason why this airplane could not be ditched, provided that it was not windy and the water was smooth.

In any case, I have personally seen a photograph of a USAF C-130 floating on the ocean. The only visible parts of the aircraft were the top of the wing and the vertical stabilizer.

At on time I had this photo. I think I found it on Airliners.Net, which has a huge database of photos.

From what I remember, the flight deck had a high likelihood of flooding on impact from the oggin...

Always decided if it had happened, down the back for the flight deck bar the skipper was probably the best way to ensure the majority of the crew survived.

I take it...its this one?

http://herkybirds.com/images/fbfiles/images/3572.jpg

The posted picture is indeed the one I was referring to. Thanks for taking the trouble to share it.

I have no idea what the ditching procedures for a C-130 are; although most of my flights were over water, the subject of ditching was never discussed.

I am no pilot, but if I were and if I ever had to ditch an aircraft, I would jettison the cargo, dump the fuel if possible, and land in the direction the waves were moving. I realize that having the wind at the tail would make for a higher speed relative to the water below than landing into the wind.

It seems to me that if you try to land into the wind, although this would make for a lower impact speed with the water, it would also create a virtual assurance of hitting a wave head on, thereby caving in the cockpit windows. Plus, I believe it would subject the aircraft to stresses that would make it more likely to break apart before it came to rest.

It's too bad that the fellow who landed the C-130 shown in the photo isn't available to tell us how he did it.