BusDriver, you said they would have had a head wind. Since you quite clearly are an expert, I'm sure you know about picking up tell-tales of wind direction if you have to make a forced landing. That being the case, perhaps you could actually look at publically available information before making a fool of yourself again. There is a public domain photo of the airplane on the beach with a windsurfer in the background and a public domain video of plastic police barrier tape around the airplane, blowing in a gentle breeze. It looks to me they landed with a tailwind.
You are mistaken about your decision time with a head or a tail wind ("60 ft with flaps full and head wind, more likely half of that distance, which gives you even less >>time<< to decide to do anything"), you seem to think your time to landing/impact varies with wind direction. Your horizontal distance flown changes. Your vertical descent rate and time to impact stays the same.
And yes, if I did not like what I saw a few seconds before impact like people (although you would have a lot more than a few seconds to work out you were over a crowded beach), I'd be minded to try something different. Esp if I was an instructor and practiced forced landings with every single student pilot who didn't give up on flying at the first circuit.
I even remember during my PPL forced landing training, the instructor asked me what to do if I was landing in a field and saw a fence as I was coming into the landing point; would i land on top of the fence or turn away? But you just stick to your landing plan even if it becomes apparent it is a bad plan and you have time to do something about it.
Your error with decision time and vertical speed vs head/tail wind is so basic that I have to ask what you asked of me: Do you actually fly?
This is a pointless argument. To summarise for the benefit of everyone else my opinion, formed on the basis of reports that it was engine failure and not loss of control are:
- PIC would have been the instructor; the instructor is experienced and will be doing practice forced landings regularly
- It would have been evident the beach was croweded. There are reports of quite a number of people running out of the way. It is reported it is a busy beach. There are people on TV saying a lot more people could have been hurt. It would have been evident there were people on the beach even there was no direct view of the two people killed.
- It was good visibility and there would have been plenty of time to observe that there were people on the beach.
- I had a guess at 60ft height where you would be able to pick the exact point you will touchdown and where you would be looking for obstructions (rocks, people etc) at that point. It could be 50 feet, it would more likely be about 100 feet. I guessed an 8:1 glide ratio based on a theoretical 10:1 with a windmilling prop... it doesn't really matter for the purpose of my agument what the exact glide ratio or height above ground when you realise you are going to hit a person is; you still have several seconds.
- At 60, or 50 or 100 feet above ground there are several seconds to change direction and I'm sure everyone on here who actually flies would change direction if there was something nasty to land on straight ahead.
- It looks to me from the sail direction on the windsurfer and police tape blowing in public domain video/photos, that the airplane landed with a tailwind or at least blowing from somewhere in the back half. It also looks to me the wind was reasonably light.
Last edited by AirJing; 3rd Aug 2017 at 22:39.