Personal Protective Equipment - wear it!
 

The emergency landing yesterday of a Shanghai to Toronto flight, in Calgary was caused by the need for medical attention for 20+ passengers, injured during a turbulence encounter. Reports state that the injured were generally those thrown around while unbelted. I'm sure that the audience here is already sold on the merits of seatbelt use, but PPE goes beyond that.

Last summer several people drowned when their whale watching boat capsized in the ocean off British Columbia. The reports suggest that they were standing on an upper deck, and not wearing life jackets. When they were more or less thrown into the cold ocean, they were unable to sustain themselves.

A few years back a Canadian Coast Guard helicopter collided with glassy water in cruise flight. The three occupants were to some degree wearing PPE, but none properly, and they all drowned in cold water immersion.

The difference between success in crash survival and death can be the result of small things. Did you stop with the aircraft instead of against the inside of it - hard? When you hit the water, were you already wearing a lifejacket, or immersion suit of cold? Was it properly done up? When you were in a fire risk environment, were you wearing cotton, wool, or other fire retardant full length clothing and suitable footware?

Helmet and parachute are the next step beyond, but certainly have their place too....

All the things we do, which used to be daring, are becoming more routine, and nanny state safe, but when the big bang happens, you're back to the basics, have you done the best for your own protection beforehand?

In cold water, life jackets add little to survival time. Thermal protection is vital.

In the 1978 Lake Temiskaming disaster 13 died of hypothermia wearing life jackets :(

Deep Waters by James Raffan is a good read.

Survival time in cold water varies greatly from person to person. Normal outdoor clothing can provide some insulation. The lifejacket is still worth wearing. There's no point in carrying life jackets in small aircraft - wear them.

I have a rather simplistic approach to the landing in water in a wheel equipped single engine airplane.

I fly in Canada on the west coast and the water temperature is very cold in the summer and at this time of year it is very, very cold.

I don't need a life jacket because I do not fly beyond gliding distance of land in a wheel equipped single engine airplane.

"If the fan stops we're going for the trees, not the lake" - pre-flight briefing from BC instructor.

To each their own, but presuming I have a lifejacket on, I'm probably headed for the shallow water in preference to unwelcoming trees. It's certainly one of those situational decisions, but the thump on a totally unyielding tree is much worse than a splash and probable flip in somewhat yielding water. The airplane is probably going to become junk in either situation, so assuming that you can minimize risk to the public, your passengers, and yourself, that's what I expect I'd do.

When flying the lakeshore of Toronto (a common VFR route) it's lifejacket on, and plan to splash at shore, than into someone's backyard, and being a risk to the schoolyard full of kids, and street side cafe's. Though the presence of a passenger who is not water capable would make me rethink that - probably a different route.

I do wear my dry immersion suit when I fly water in the cold season, though I admit that I tend to leave it done up only to the waist, as the unfortunate crew of the Canadian Coast Guard helicopter. I'll be rethinking that. The mitts on the immersion suit are not great for switches and dexterity in general.

Not a vast quantity of either on Vancouver Island - it's (mostly) trees or lakes.

http://i556.photobucket.com/albums/s...andpat/fly.jpg

Flying from the UK to Jersey.

And looking very handsome and debonair I must say. :ok:

Your body will be well preserved when they pull it out of the water. ;)

...Which is key! It sure saves a lot of emergency services time and expense, when they can find the person floating, rather than days or longer diving for a body! I have flown many searches for the police. Every person wearing a lifejacket, I have found. I have never found a person in the water who was reported as not wearing one.

How long did it take to find all the victims of the British Columbia whale boat capsize?

Please don't get angry with me because I am kind of simple minded and sometimes I have difficulty figuring stuff out.

In what circumstances would you have to fly over water beyond gliding distance of land in a wheel equipped single engine airplane that is worth gambling your life for?

Well Chuck, every time I cross the water to another country in my single engine aircraft I take that chance. Also every time I fly over a large forest. Of the two, I prefer water.I have also recently cycled the length of Spain, which has its own risks.
I do it because I want to. Next time I am killed will be the first.
It's all about choice and personal freedom.

Pretty well everything you do you're gambling your life, it's just a matter of what the odds are and your personal risk/benefit analysis.

As a little boy I was told the story of the guy who decided to avoid all risk by spending his entire life in a bed of cotton wool ... and then suffocated in cotton wool.

There was a glider pilot named Ian Lingham, who sadly passed away about ten years ago of natural causes. However, he was famous for having written off three club gliders.... and suffered no injuries at all.

Glider number one left a glider shaped hole in the hedge on approach.
Glider number two was a bit low on approach, though higher this time, because it was tall trees in the adjacent housing estate that brought down the glider.

Glider number three was a K18 glider, belonging to the Black Mountains gliding club. They rented it to Ian in December, when there was snow on the ground.
And the days were short. Ian took an aerotow up the side of the mountain, and did not return. A tug went out to search in the gathering gloom, but could not find the glider. Heads were sadly shaken, expecting this was the first fatality for Talgarth.

When the phone rang. (this before the days we all carried mobile phones).
Ian was safe, in a local farmhouse, up on the mountain some distance from the club. The Chief Instructor said don't worry, we can go retrieve the glider in the morning. The local farmer brought him down to the clubhouse where he stayed the night.

The next day, with a trailer, and plenty of help, the members travelled over the hill to the location described. And as they crested the hill, the Chief Instructor said "My God, it's in the lake!" Which it was. Undulating in the ripples.

Ian told us he had to decide on trees or water, and thought water might be better. He had to decide on the shallow end of the reservoir, or the deep end, so he elected to land in the shallow end. And remembered to undo his canopy latch just before touchdown; however, as soon as the glider hit the water, it sank. He was still fastened down with his parachute and his seatbelt! which took some undoing before he could stand up in the glider and breath. Now soaking wet, it was not quite dark, so he trekked through the trees and mountainside toward a farmhouse, where he called us to say he was OK. He forgot to mention the glider was in the reservoir.

Of course, being a wooden glider, all the glue had melted overnight. None the less, the K18 is a splendid early cross country glider, and it was rebuilt and is still flying today.

The reservoir was renamed Lake Lingham. After this, Ian bought his own glider, and never had another accident.

Where I live the water is so cold one would very quickly lose the ability to move period, and if by some stroke of luck you did get ashore you would not last long at this time of year if you were not picked up and taken inside to get dry and warm.

So the water would not be as good as the forest.

I gotta do it when I want to visit friends who live on islands Chuck....

Years ago, I was planning a flight from Calgary to Vancouver and discussed the routing with my instructor. The direct route "over the tops" is 428 nm and requires flying at up to 11,000' initially. The "safer" route at 7000' maximum, following the Trans Canada Highway, is at least 100 nm longer.

My instructor's view was that if the weather was good, go direct because that would mean less time in the air and therefore less chance of an engine failure!

For various reasons, I didn't make the flight, but I've always kept his comments in mind.

You want to fly GA from Jersey airport mate. :ok:

I was always neurotic about engine failure partly because I trained in microlights. A very good friend of mine made me fly for 1 hour over Snowdonia where there is no landing out possibilities to give me more confidence in my Lycoming engine. Didn't actually cure me and I always listened out for that fateful noise, however it is a fact that a well maintained aeroplane engine very rarely fails.

That is true.

However they do fail, sometimes over water.

One day I was talking to a ferry pilot in Wick Scotland where we were waiting for weather for the North Atlantic crossing.

He was flying a Cessna 172 and I asked him if he was worried about flying over all that water in a single engine 172, he said he had been ferrying single engine airplanes across the Northern Atlantic route for a long time and he had no worries because they never quit.

Some time later I tried to contact him and one of his friends told me he had gone missing in a Cessna 172 between Iceland and Greenland.

.

As you know I live on Vancouver Island, and when I used to fly single engine to the mainland if I could not climb high enough to make land I did not go.

I am well aware that it is all about risk assessment and I am only expressing my thoughts on it.

Lets look at it another way.

We all have the right to accept a given risk based on our own limits of risk taking, lets say you are flying xx miles beyond land in your single engine airplane and are willing to take that risk based on your rights to decide what you do.

Would you still go if you had three underage childeren with you that are not old enough to decide for them self?

Chuck, As you say, we decide for ourselves. Deciding for children is another matter, and I don't think age is relevant long as they are capable of understanding. As I don't have children they would not be mine, so the parents would have to decide for them or let them decide for themselves.
BTW, the water temperatures our way are a bit higher, but I don't think that's the deciding factor. What matters to me, and I can only speak for myself, is that I live my life to the full, which means accepting the risk and then doing what I want to do.
If I die while active and fit then I have lost some time on this earth. If I linger in a home for the bewildered then what have I gained?
I will take sensible precautions against death by stupidity. I won't cower in my bedroom in case I catch cold. I don't think flying single engine over water is a worse risk than many other common activities. If I am wrong, then so be it. My life, my choice.