Single engine over water
Some food for thought.
Over a number of years and a few hundred hours of flying light singles I have had few qualms about flying aircraft over water. I have made a number of channel crossings via long and short routes, a couple of North Sea hops and once flew a Pitts from Italy to France across the Gulf of Genoa and then offshore along the coast at low level to clear Nice.
I subscribed to the school of thought that aircraft engines are reliable and don’t fail. Besides, engine failure over a lot of terrain would be worse than over the sea.
Last Sunday I was flying from Germany to the UK via a direct route across the North Sea. The aircraft was a well-maintained large single on a public transport C of A. The aircraft was just out of a 50 hour check and the outward flight had been uneventful.
The weather across the continent was pretty lousy and there was a strong headwind. During the flight I considered amending the flight plan and routing down the Belgian coast to make the crossing via Calais as I didn’t fancy a long low flight across the sea. Low because the freezing level was forecast at 4000’. About 15 miles to run to the Haamstede VOR on the Dutch Coast the weather cleared and looked fair for the crossing. About 2 miles from coasting outbound the engine suffered what the Dutch mechanics have subsequently described as a catastrophic failure (full details not yet known but oil all over the underside of the aircraft and none on the dipstick when examined on the ground). The resultant diversion to Rotterdam with a rough running engine, power loss and smoke was relatively uneventful and resulted in a safe arrival on the runway. A big thank you has to go to Amsterdam and Rotterdam ATC, the airport management and the airport fire service.
We were equipped with life jackets, raft, ELT, backup Icom and GPS in a sealed plastic bag and (albeit some years ago) I passed the RAF sea survival course. We didn’t have immersion suits. The occupants were all experienced pilots and we had briefed evacuation in the event of a ditching (who out of which doors and who taking life raft and going where etc.) Despite all of these precautions, none of us really expected a failure over water and any real likelihood of having to ditch. We were all confident in making the crossing as we had been on the outward flight.
Had the failure occurred 15+ minutes later we would have ended up in the North Sea which would doesn’t bear thinking about at this time of year.
Statistically I should now be safe for the next few hundred years but I’m not sure that I will make a long (i.e. North Sea) crossing again in a single again and certainly not without a survival suit. Some might say that I’ve lost my bottle but I’m not usually a timid person (apart from flying my hobbies are skydiving and bobsleighing – the latter being the purpose of the trip). Having reflected on how lucky we were I now realise that there is a real risk in making such a long over water flight.