Blessed are children and the ignorant.
I don’t think either of you have the faintest idea what an utterly stupid suggestion you’ve made.

I eagerly await enlightenment from your knowledgeable explanation.

In that part of the world you’ll be an alligator’s lunch

Ain't that the truth, had one living outside the sim centre at the Sikorsky plant WPB awaiting any errant pilot.

We had an incident with the Cypher UAV some years ago at the Sikorsky WPB plant and it ended up in the canal. Scared off the gators for a bit, which was good as we had to pull the thing out.

I suspect the Challenger would have made a bigger splash.

I used to do freshwater scuba diving in Florida when I would go down for sim training(plus one manatee encounter swim). I dived at several springs and a river where there actually was an alligator on the riverbank that we passed in the boat. I think the alligator attack thing is overblown. Yes, there are attacks but compared to the number of scuba dives/swims, the proportion of incidents is small. In other words, if you ditched your aircraft in the water and survived the crash, you would likely survive the possibility of an alligator attack. Bottom line, considering a ditching is not a stupid suggestion. Therefore, to decide not to ditch and choose a much riskier option would be foolish.

I guess many people have this idea of a human touching the water and multiple crocs immediately starting to swim over like a James Bond movie. Perhaps similar to many people automatically thinking of a crash when they think of an airliner.

For reference....."There were 401 unprovoked alligator attacks on humans in Florida between 1948 and 2021. Out of these 401 incidents, 25 led to fatal attacks. Most Florida alligator attacks occur near fresh water sources like lakes, ponds, and rivers. Florida witnesses an average of 7 unprovoked alligator attacks on humans per year".

7 attacks on probably millions of people going for a swim/scuba dive.

From the video it looks that the PF planned to make it over the wall of the interstate, but found in the last seconds, that he could not make it and had to correct the glide path. Unfortunately he crashed with still some lateral energy into the wall. A forced landing from base leg without power and without enough energy to make it over densely populated ares is every pilots nightmare.
There are most times no good options. Here they had about 60 seconds. You run your memory items and at the same time look for some spot which promises survival.

In the safe armchair it is easy to claim why they did not do this and that.

Question for current 604 drivers - would you expect to see the ADG out in this scenario? The video is blurry but I can’t see the ADG. My experience is limited to the 601 and Globals, but in both of those the ADG or Rat would deploy immediately following double engine failure. I am guessing that in the 604 the apu generator is brought online in a standby mode when the APU is running and in this case automatically takes the electrical load when the engine driven gens drop off, preventing the ADG from deploying?

That is likely. SOP for a Challenger is to start the APU during descent (usually below 10,000 feet), and transfer the bleed air for the packs from the engine 10th stage to the APU bleed air. The APU generator would remain in standby, but would come online immediately if both engine generators failed.

I went to flight school in Florida. I never even thought about alligators as a factor for emergency landings. I did managed to get chased by one once, I swam across a river and it followed me the whole way.Obviously it could have caught me anytime it wanted to. They are not crocodiles and are not nearly as nasty. There are Florida crocs, but they are quite rare.
In fairness to the pilots, it isn't like they had time to study Google Earth.

I do wish the the armchair pilots would just stay quiet about what they could have done. I'm personally convinced that they did what they could under the circumstances they found themselves in, with the intention of trying to save their passengers (which they did) and themselves (which unfortunately they didn't). They had precious SECONDS to make a decision while some of you "experts" pontificate for hours in your armchairs about what they should have done! It's an absolute disgrace. Oh, by the way, I am not a pilot!

601/604/605 and 650 work the same way… if the APU was running it’s generator would be on standby and stay in that mode even with a dual engine failure.

The ADG should deploy automatically and provide limited electrical power but if you want the APU’s generator to take over and feed the electrical power, you need to select a switch that will change the power source.

Thanks for the clarification, it’s been a minute since I’ve flown a challenger - and that was a 601 which if I recall had a limitation that the APU gen could not be used in flight unless both engine gens had failed - so even after we started the APU and transitioned the bleeds descending through 10 we left the APU gen switch off until after landing. That limitation may have been removed if the APU was upgraded to the -150.

YMMV
 

That canal is along Collier boulevard and has many bridges to residential neighborhoods East of there.
Even if you’d manage to avoid the bridges it’s not wide enough to accommodate a Challenger meaning the wings would be ripped off and the fuselage likely ending submerged or even worse inverted and submerged.
None of the man made lakes there are big enough for a successful ditching and mostly surrounded by homes and other obstacles.
Best option would likely have been the center median but it looks from the video they didn’t have enough time to maneuver.
There is also an overpass maybe half a mile from the crash site.

SW of the I-75 interchange North of the crash site is a rectangular pond some 700 metres or ½ mile long by 150m wide:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/94AUrvacQ7QYkx4t7

There are a few aerators that are likely more flexible than the barrier wall. And reduced fire hazard.

As for the median, it slopes to the central drainage ditch such that the wings might touch before the gear. In addition there is a 3-wire barrier likely designed to prevent semis from crossing the median.
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The pond you refer to is well to the North of the impact site and the cable barriers are waist high and intended to stop/deflect personal vehicles and light trucks, not full size semi’s.



http://www.swfltim.org/Document%20Ar...esentation.pdf

When I saw all the traffic on the highway, and the plane's wingtip hitting the wall on the side of the road, I started wondering if the grass median in the middle of the lanes would not have been the better option.. thoughts?

Plenty of advice on what the crew could have done from those who may not have been in their situation. I wouldn't know how to handle a bizjet but I have a four-inch scar plus 40 stitches to demonstrate my skills following engine failure in a light single at 1000ft. Below me were small fields with stone walls to form a very effective arrester barrier. Believe me the damn thing comes down where IT wants to, not in central median, traffic lane, bridge or lake. I think the crew did a great job.

Already been mentioned and eliminated!