Absolutely top read that report! To think that was back in the time of virtually no computers, no internet..etc and yet they still only took 333 days from go to woe, makes the 1017 days for the Norfolk report look pretty farcical!
I also found the section on Survival Aspects fascinating and almost comical if it wasn't such a tragic tale:
1.14 Survival Aspects
Approximately 10 minutes prior to the ditching, the captain instructed the purser to advise the passengers to don their lifevests and prepare for a ditching. The purser understood this to be a precautionary measure and assumed that further instructions would be given if a ditching were necessary. The steward and stewardess demonstrated how to put on the lifevest as the purser made the announcement over the cabin public address (PA) system. (The cockpit microphone for the PA system was inoperative, and as a result no direct instructions were given from the cockpit.) Then all three cabin attendants assisted individual passengers as necessary. Some could not remove the lifevests from the pouch under the seat, and others were unable to don the vest properly.
The navigator was sent back to the cabin to assist with preparations for ditching, and he helped the purser move the 25-man raft from the forward coat closet, on the left side of the aircraft, to the galley area directly opposite on the right side. The steward was also in the galley area securing the galley equipment when the navigator suddenly was aware that impact was imminent, and shouted for everyone to sit down. The steward sat down on the raft, facing aft, and the navigator and purser sat in the aft-facing jumpseat on the forward cabin bulkhead. They were unable to fasten their seatbelts prior to impact. Several passengers and the stewardess were still standing, and at least five others did not have their seatbelts fastened at impact. The reactions of passengers ranged from those who used pillows in various “crash positions” to those who looked out the window, assuming that the aircraft was completing an overwater approach to the runway at St. Croix.
Following impact, the purser and the navigator attempted to open the forward main passenger loading door, but found it to be jammed and inoperable. These two crewmembers then moved to the galley area where a third crewman, the steward, had already opened the galley exit door and at least one passenger had made her escape through the galley door. The three crewmen attempted to free the raft from the galley equipment which had spilled to the galley floor.
They had just been joined by the first officer in this effort when the raft inadvertently inflated. The inflated raft pinned the first officer to the galley bulkhead, and prevented the other crewmembers from entering the main cabin area. The first officer did not recall how the liferaft became inflated or how he became free from the position in which it pinned him.
These four crewmembers exited through the galley door. The captain was aware of the difficulties in the galley area, and entered the water through the cockpit window. He swam to the left overwing exits, opened them from the outside, and assisted two passengers out of the aircraft. The captain then glanced through the cabin for additional passengers but saw none. Most of the passengers exited through the aft right overwing exit, which was opened by a passenger who was seated next to it. The navigator found an emergency escape slide floating in the water and, with the help of a female passenger, inflated it. The first officer, who had no lifevest, climbed on top of the slide and assumed command of the main group of survivors who gathered around the slide. Belts and ties were used to provide additional handholds for the people.
Although none of the five 25-man rafts on board the aircraft was deployed, several rafts were air-dropped at the ditching site. The U.S. Coast Guard HU-16, an amphibian aircraft, dropped two rafts but both fell too far away to be reached.
In addition, a Skyvan dropped two rafts in the area. The captain swam to one raft and the navigator reached the other, but neither was able to maneuver his raft back to the main group.
Recovery of the survivors by helicopter began approximately 1% hours after the ditching, and the last survivor, the first officer, was picked up about 1 hour later. In summary, 11 survivors were picked up by the two U.S. Coast Guard HH-52A helicopters, 26 survivors were rescued by a U.S. Navy SH-3A helicopter, and the remaining three survivors were picked up by a U.S. Marine Corps CH-46 helicopter.
Makes you realise that such an incident/accident can initially lead to shock, chaos, disorientation and mismanagement that affect the ability of a reasonably well trained crew to carry out their emergency drills etc..
What it does highlight is that there is so much we can learn from such a tragic event.
The NTSB obviously think there is much to learn from this accident as there are still today 16 safety recommendations dutifully recorded on the NTSB SR database, see here:
And how many safety recommendations did the ATSB Norfolk ditching report generate? Not a single one!
Oh but Beaker did give us his spin on that:
Mr Dolan: There are two things there and I will go to the question of recommendations before I get to the specifics of your question.
The ATSB at the point where it became independent of the Department of Infrastructure and Transport also got a shift in its powers in relation to the making of recommendations which raised the ante with recommendations and their significance. There is a legal requirement to respond to each of the recommendations we make. In recognition of that we set up the system of identifying safety issues that said there needs to be a critical or a significant safety issue before we will explicitly use that power to make a recommendation and require a response, and we would generally limits recommendations to those sorts of things.
What you are talking about we would in our normal framework, given what you said about likelihood and consequence, deal with as a safety issue without going to recommendation. That is the context: it is still there but your question remains.
What is probably closer to the truth is that the Beaker knows that to administer a proper Safety Recommendation database costs money...so we'll cover that over with waffle like in the above quote!
Meanwhile Big Mack rubs his hands in glee cause he knows that Fort Fumble will no longer be obligated to respond and action any pesky ATSB SRs...oh what a load of pony pooh!
Senators you are all on notice!! Please call time on this mob of numbnuts!
For those of you interested here's a link for that report:
http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR71-08.pdf