Few details available at the moment, but an aircraft has made an emergency landing on a beach in Portugal. Two people not in the aircraft reported killed.

Plane's beach landing kills Lisbon sunbathers

https://twitter.com/omalestafeito/st...632576/photo/1

A forced landing in the sea, far enough off shore to be beyond any one swimming, would perhaps have been a better choice!

More here with pictures.
Two sunbathers are killed near Lisbon | Daily Mail Online

Very poor choice indeed! Very sad - couldn't agree more!

Absolutely disgusting! Who in their right mind would want to attempt a landing on a packed beach? I would rather risk a ditching in the sea than have to live with the rest of my life knowing I have killed two persons; one of which was an eight year old child.

Yeap, it's looking like a pretty selfish move.

Taking that course of action, you may well be prosecuted for manslaughter.

I presume you are being facetious?

He may not have had the time or control to ditch in the sea?

From the comfortable position in front of my PC screen, I am not sure whether I endorse the "sod everyone else" perspective, but I feel that there is a lot of benefit of hindsight here -- even assuming that the pilot had a choice, I doubt that he willingly and in cold blood decided to sacrifice two lives. If the plane had failed to hit anyone or the people had "merely" been injured and not killed, I assume the criticism regarding landing site would not be quite as harsh.

And given the prospect of cartwheeling (in shallow water?) and drowning (even though chances of escaping are probably better in an aircraft with doors as opposed to a canopy), I am not sure about my heroism in a similar situation which I'll hopefully never experience.

Pics I've seen show a rather limp port wing, i.e. there may have been control issues...

Picking a crowded beach rather than 100M offshore as a location to put down, assuming they were given the choice, is cowardice in my book.

However: we don't know that the driver had that option.

Best to let the fog clear (as usual) before passing judgement.

It could be that the pilot used exceptional skill to land it at the waters edge instead of the packed upper beach area, thus avoiding even more casualties...

Only those in the cockpit know the answer.

RIP to those killed, especially the family of the young girl.

Things appear so obvious when your standing there relaxed on the beach looking up at the sky. Different thing when your up there and your little world goes bad. Suddenly what you perceive is seen through a tight little tunnel of vision that finds it difficult to differentiate objects below - unless you look directly at something on the ground objects become blurred and unnoticed. So many things to do and milliseconds to make decisions...

It may have only been on very short final that the pilot became aware of the people on the beach and then it would have been to late to avoid them.

Found a video that shows the aircraft on a part of the beach away from the sunbathers:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Trf_hTxDNOk




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I don't get why people are banging on about a bad choice of place to land...

Just look at the photos. The spar is buggered but the gear is intact. No way was that wing damaged like that by the landing alone.

RIP to the two innocent people involved. Condolences to the families of all involved.

Being judgmental and condemning people's actions without first having the facts is a trade mark of this forum. Not having a pilot license also appears to be de rigueur.

"The spar is buggered but the gear is intact. No way was that wing damaged like that by the landing alone."

I'm thinking that spar got "buggered" by one of the two now dead holiday makers.

Looking at the videos it looks like the strut is bent. On a Cessna the wing will sag when the supporting strut is removed. The two wing spars are bolted by one bolt each to the cabin carry through spars so are free to pivot around the bolts.






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Yep.

Looking at some of the YouTube videos it looks like the aircraft may very well of landed in some shallow water of an outgoing tide. The beach goers towels and umbrellas are well up the beach slope. There is also the angle of the sun to consider re blinding reflections.
Scenario - gliding down and turn onto short final for a water landing Parallel to the beach and get blinded by the sun thus not seeing the bathers.






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As happens all too often in accident threads here, there seems to be a rush to judgement based on assumptions about what happened, and how, based on very little detailed knowledge.

Several posters here have made the assumption that the pilot deliberately chose to make his emergency landing on a crowded beach rather than ditch in the sea. On that basis he is called a coward and condemned out of hand.

Well, let me speculate as well about what may have happened:

. The plane has an engine failure and the pilot sets up an approach to the beach with the option to put it into the sea

. The people on the beach hear the engine failing, realise what has happened, and get off the beach

. Some of them may be in the sea close to the beach thinking the plane won't land there (from the news story: ”According to reports, some sunbathers ran into the sea.”).

. Note: if that is true, it means they must have realised what was happening and had time to run into the sea or to vacate the beach in some other way

. The pilot sees this and elects to land on what, at that moment, is an empty beach

. The plane is now on very short finals and is gliding in silently

. An 8 year old girl doesn't realise what is happening and runs out onto the beach

. An adult sees this and runs out to try to save her

. The accident happens and the wing strut hits the victims

Now I stress that I don't know if this is what really happened any more that anyone else speculating here; but I suggest it is at least as plausible as saying that the pilot would cold-bloodedly hit someone in preference to ditching as has been implied by some of those posting.

Remember also that, once finally committed to landing on that beach, there is no reset button.

In the time-honoured phrase: "let's wait for the accident report".

No it isn't.

'Killer!': Angry crowd confronts pilot after plane kills girl, 8, and man in crash-landing on Portuguese beach

This eyewitness account suggests it struck a car that was on the beech. Might explain the wing being bent.

Disgusting behaviour ( manslaughter??) when people post with blame, before knowing the circumstances.