PA28 ditched off Guernsey

[Aero Mad]

BBC News - Aircraft ditches in English Channel (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-guernsey-15708483)

Breaking on the BBC now, hope the two onboard are all right.

Edit: BBC now saying that it was flying in from Lee-on-Solent, owned by Alderney Flying Training.

[PompeyPaul]

Interesting day to decide to go flying. The tafs have been crap all day.

[LeeP-PA28]

Hope they were wearing life jackets :( hope they turn up ok...

[Contacttower]

EGJA 121405Z 1215/1219 11015KT 9999 FEW003 BKN025

TAF for Alderney doesn't look too bad... Crash happened about 1550 apparently.

[The Grim EPR]

Interesting day to decide to go flying. The tafs have been crap all day.

With respect Mr Paul, the TAFs weren't that bad. We don't know about the ratings held by the pilot or the equipment on board the aircraft. I would have happily made that journey today, with an option to divert to Bournemouth or Guernsey.

[g0lfer]

BBC reporting wife picked up from life raft but husband missing.

[Aero Mad]

The following have been engaged in the search effort:


Alderney lifeboat
Guernsey lifeboat
Mona Rigolet (French rescue vessel)
Our Miranda (fishing vessel)
Abeille Liberte (large French tug)
Jork Rider (Russian merchant ship)
MFV Kerrie Marie (fishing boat)

HMS Tyne
2x SAR helicopters
Lion's Pride (Channel Islands Air Search aircraft)

For shipping movements as they happen, click here (http://www.digimap.gg/ais). Looking at this, a number of other boats could be involved but these are probably on fishing operations.

[Smudger]

TAFs don't mean much when you're in the f******g water in November ffs

[RTN11]

A woman has been air lifted to hospital having been found in a raft, the search continues for the other occupant.

BBC News - Aircraft ditches in English Channel (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-guernsey-15708483)

[Smudger]

Crag.. give me strength... think about it

[UV]

TAFs don't mean much when you're in the f******g water in November ffs

That must be the most unpleasant remark Ive ever seen following a serious accident. They havent even recovered the people concerned yet. Would you like to rephrase it?

Why, just why, do these events bring out the worst in Pprune or Flyer?
It shows Private Pilots in such a bad light.

Smudger, I suggest you look at the recent Red Arrows thread and you will see 8 pages and 159 posts to date. Read it. Thats how it should be done.
http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/468525-another-red-arrows-mishap-merged-8.html

[Aero Mad]

Search resumed earlier, after halting overnight. Many other vessels now involved.

[rneilharvey]

A lovely local couple - flying community here on Alderney in shock.

Our thoughts with the dear lady and her family.

[simonrennie]

My inlaws live in Alderney and I fly to visit regulary so this very sad accident is of particular interest and my love / hate for the news is fueled, wanting to hear real facts quickly, not miss facts from speculaltion and at the moment there seems to be so little facts. Unusual to be south of the island when flying from the mainland? Nothing clear of the actual ditching point, wx appears to have been perfectly flyable. Wish I had found it yesterday but Marine Traffic - AIS | Digimap Ltd, Guernsey (http://www.digimap.gg/ais) the French tug named earlier, the light blue tag was / now searching some 30/40 miles NNW of Guernsey

[talkpedlar]

a crious place to ditch if flying from south coast to Alderney.. fingers still crossed but it will have been a long cold night. tp

[simonrennie]

Obviously very strong currents in the CI and now hours later but water is 15 degrees, you don't get much warmer than that but without a survival suit on it looks very sad for him, the poor poor lady and family , but yes everything still crossed here.

[Aero Mad]

The BBC map is wrong. The actual crash site is thought to have been about 20 miles WSW of Alderney. This would be an odd course from Lee-on-Solent but last night's activities indicate this position. Fingers crossed but comments about him not leaving the aircraft are worrying :(

[Daysleeper]

The position (from AIS) of HMS Tyne yesterday afternoon was more like 20nm N of Alderney, This would be just outside the Class A airway to Ortac and an entirely logical place to be if one was crossing at a decent height without entering the airway.

Edited again to add - from reading the "other" side seems the search is very widespread. I think the confusion over where the aircraft was will continue for some time and we're unlikely to get much more closer than guesswork for a while.

[Malthouse]

Well said Neil. A sad time.

[englishal]

Currents can be as strong as 10 kts around the Casquettes lighthouse. The coastguard have a program that they put in the initial position and it calculates a search area based upon tides and winds etc.

Someone mentioned that it might be considered an odd place to ditch, but if you have no option...... but unfortunately even in 15C water temps, time of survival is not that long unless you have a life raft and immersion suit.

[IO540]

Probably not a helpful comment on this sad incident but this is why, after ~50hrs in PA28s in my post-PPL renting, I wasn't going to get a single door plane. I had the lock jam on an Archer once, and anyway it was obvious that nothing short of a snake was going to get out of one in a hurry, especially if the front RHS person is still in place.

[Aero Mad]

Sorry, I meant that it was an odd place considering the aircraft was travelling from Lee-on-Solent to Alderney - no intention to offend. The search has now been called off, and the lady has been discharged from hospital in Cherbourg into the care of her family.

[goldeneaglepilot]

A very sad event, my thoughts and condolences are with the poor wife. The reality is that even if you survive the landing into water (difficult in any aircraft, worse in a fixed undercarriage aircraft) then the odds are against you, you have got to get out, get the raft out and inflated, get into the raft, all of these things to deal with, coupled with shock and fear. Very difficult.
It’s frightening when you take a look at survival times for a person in water without an immersion suit, women last longer than men and the figures below are rough estimates, factors such as health, injury, mental state (some people fight more than others and have greater tenancity to the issues faced) all figure in the equation.

Expected Survival Time in Cold Water





(Exhaustion or Unconsciousness first figure, survival time (in red) second)



70–80° F (21–27° C)


3–12 hours - 3 hours – indefinitely



60–70° F (16–21° C)


2–7 hours - 2–40 hours



50–60° F (10–16° C)


1–2 hours - 1–6 hours



40–50° F (4–10° C)


30–60 minutes - 1–3 hours



32.5–40° F (0–4° C)


15–30 minutes - 30–90 minutes



<32° F (<0° C)


Under 15 minutes - Under 15–45 minutes

[simonrennie]

If this poor chap has lost his life, which sadly is looking like the case he has not died in vein if a few of us learn, discuss and remember from the incident. Yes scary if you read those survival times for the first time but it is survivable and I have in my head from somewhere 90% chance of surviving the chrash into water and 90% chance of then dying of hyperthermia, which is why a life jacket in April, a T shirt and shorts and sandels is somewhat unwise when the water is probably at its coldest. A single door is the least of your problems but you need to be comfortable and happy in what you fly but areoplanes don't know when they are over water or when its dark and currency and an aircraft in good nick is key, cut corners and one day, someone, pays. I carry black bin bags, rope and spare gloves in my grab bag even without the dingy you lose the use of your fingers quickly, tie people together and the bags trap water around your body. If that keeps you alive another 5 minutes and the heicopter is 4 minutes away I will go with that. It might not work if I even need it but its no good being there wishing I had some of the cheap easy bits from home, you can only think about it and have some planning as opossed to none. Busiest shipping channel in the world?.... but you are still a needle in a haystack.

[southport]

Here is a link were his wife says he was unconscious when the plane started sinking & she couldn’t get him out.

He must have controlled it pretty good as he got it down well enough for his wife to get out without a scratch & close to a vessel. Deepest sympathies to his family

English Channel plane crash: Hunt for pilot underway near Guernsey | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2060772/English-Channel-plane-crash-Hunt-pilot-underway-near-Guernsey.html)

[seymour beaver]

I often feel uneasy when i read the replies to incidents such as this on pprune.I hope the majority of readers and not instant contributers do feel for the people who suddenly had their lives turned upside down.Ive often seen incidents such as this posted here turn into rants or i told you so advice and thats why i didnt follow pprune for some years.

[Newforest2]

The pilot has been named as Ian Dickinson.

English Channel plane crash: Millionaire Ian Dickinson, 79, killed | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2061177/English-Channel-plane-crash-Millionaire-Ian-Dickinson-79-killed.html?ito=feeds-newsxm)

[RTN11]

RIP - thoughts with the family. It's always a risk when you take a single engine over water, especially in a piper with only one door.

The Mail article you have linked to there is one of the worst pieces of journalism I've ever seen! trying to link two tragic events into one poorly written article is bad form, and misleading.

[SDB73]

What a terrible trajedy.

My wife and I were flying from the Channel Islands back to the UK, a week before this accident, in our PA28. It's ridiculous that it did, but it brought it all into stark reality, and has really upset my wife.

I am extremely safety conscious, and of course we don't know exactly what happened, but it's made me think that I might send myself and my wife on a ditching survival course.

In the mean time, I think I'm going to revert back to taking the dover/calais crossing to reduce exposure to flying over water in a single.

Our thoughts are (as goldeneaglepilot wisely stated) with his poor wife. What an unimaginable trauma.

But I am also extremely grateful for threads like this, as it helps us all learn. I think we all just have to remember that some people in life are morons, and you have to use self moderation to filter out the ludicrous, thoughtless comments and move onto the next post.

[five zero by ortac]

Perhaps PompeyPaul (in post no.2) could tell us what was "crap" about the weather. Looks fine to me.

EGJA 121650Z 10008KT CAVOK 14/13 Q1023=
EGJA 121620Z 11009KT CAVOK 14/13 Q1023=
EGJA 121550Z 09010KT CAVOK 14/13 Q1023=
EGJA 121520Z 08010KT 9999 FEW025 15/13 Q1023=
EGJA 121450Z 09008KT 9999 FEW025 16/14 Q1023=
EGJA 121420Z 11006KT 9999 FEW020 15/14 Q1023=

RIP - The pilot was a fine gentleman and excellent pilot. A very sad loss for the local flying community. Our thoughts to his family at this terrible time.

[Johnm]

For those of us (like Mr Dickinson) who are regular flyers to Alderney the weather conditions look lovely. I've made that trip many times in much much worse and in a similar PA28.

I'm guessing that his position was because he realised he wasn't going to make the island and chose to ditch in the shipping lanes near a suitable vessel. He would have had the visibility and probably had thought about that option more than once, as have I on many crossings from the South Coast to Alderney.

The fact that his wife was able to exit the aircraft unharmed with the raft and was picked up very quickly by a merchant vessel speaks volumes for the courage and presence of mind of Mr Dickinson.

RIP.

[arrow2]

We will all have our own personal risk tolerance limits. Some people will accept risks of long overwater crossings. I will not now since some engine problems in my then PA28R half way between Le Havre and Littlehampton. Now short crossing only.

Mitigate the risk whichever crossing you are comfortable with - minimum jackets, raft and warm clothing.

a2

[PompeyPaul]

The weather I was referring to was at take off, Scumhampton which had mist and crap visibility.

[jecuk]

I remember crossing Bass Straight to King Island years ago in a SE Mooney. Overwater crossing are nerve wracking but I just went to 10k feet and kept ATC updated with my position. Twins may have their issues but overwater I would want one every time now.

[fisbangwollop]

Watching Channel Island news last night they said the flight disappeared from ATC radar.....did the flight put out a Mayday indicating the nature of the emergency or did they indeed just disappear as the news item suggests.

A tragic incident none the less and shows how important it is to maintain contact with ATC whilst flying over water/inhospitable terrain which sadly many don't bother to do!!!!

[Malthouse]

Pilot saves wife after landing in Channel when electrics failed - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8889911/Pilot-saves-wife-after-landing-in-Channel-when-electrics-failed.html)

[IO540]

It absolutely beggars belief that he would have voluntarily ditched following an electrical failure, as the DT article suggests.

“Weather conditions were good but there was an electrical failure, none of the electrics were working. As a result, he made a conscious decision to land on water close to a ship they could see from the plane.

Utterly incredible.

[Fuji Abound]

Pure speculation on my part for academic debate and not therefore specific to this accident if an aircraft suffers complete electrical failure over the sea and has no hand held gps or radio i guess some will struggle to navigate. Flying a compass course, watch and map are pretty much your options. Fuel allowing we would make for land and depending on how good we thought we were a specific destination and evetually use the coast as a point of reference. Unused skills suffer over time and how good a job most of us could do is another debate. Would we expect to find one of the cis from 40 miles away, or would we aim to "bump" into france or england? Visibility might be very poor.

I think on the whole nearly evetyone would give it a go realising land any land is better than the sea and with enough fuel would make landfall but i bet many would be a few miles out ;).

I recall an old friend recounting war time tales of delivering aircraft to the azores and other far flung islands coasting out with enough fuel to get there with a small reserve to search for the islands as necessary but not enough to get back. With map, pencil and often poor met forecasts it left me thinking it must have kept ones attention. Did they have df - well thinking about it i guess they did but i never asked the question - it was a good yarn though.

[IO540]

Some of the old airmen were very good. They could tell the wind, well enough, from the sea state, and make heading corrections that worked well enough. They could fly 100-200nm over open sea and find an unlit aircraft carrier.

Mind you, many didn't, and one doesn't read about those.

Today this is just crazy. You carry a handheld GPS and a handheld radio.

And you don't fly to the C.I. with near-empty tanks so you get the benefit of the lower fuel price, when you could have filled up at say Shoreham and - as an owner, for sure - pocketed the duty drawback on the exported fuel.

But we will continue to see accidents like this.

[Contacttower]

I too think it unlikely that he would have ditched just because he had an electrical failure...there must be more to this...:confused:

[Genghis the Engineer]

Intuitively, I'd have thought that a ditching in that area is due to a propulsive failure or more immediate in-flight emergency that made staying airborne an even worse option. Also even a single survivor indicates strongly that the ditching was controlled.

A pilot of that age almost certainly has competent map and compass skills, and any pilot of any age nowadays will have a handheld GPS on board on a long trip. Those, in the conditions described, make navigating a serviceable aeroplane to a runway and landing it pretty straightforward.

I'm not a betting man, but if I were, I'd put my money on a problem on the aeroplane and a controlled ditching.

What does not seem at-all unlikely however is that whilst the pilot may have had a good idea what the problem was, his priority was not to getting that information accurately to his wife or anybody else. His priority surely was a safe ditching and saving first his wife's life and then his own. By and large he seems to have succeeded.

G

[SDB73]

I don't know...

Imagine all your electrics go out.

Has the alternator failed? Will the engine just stop at some point? We should be at Alderny by now, but it's just open sea. This is the only boat we've seend for 15 minutes.

Decision : do we push on / turn back, knowing that the engine could stop when we're miles from anywhere, no vessels in sight and no radios to tell anyone, or do we aim for that boat right now, and put it down under full control.

Landing a fixed gear on the ocean can't be completely straight forward, so it sounds like he knew how to handle an aeroplane.

Very VERY easy for people to sit in their warm office / lounge and type on a forum that they wouldn't have done the same, but when you're there, and the decision that could save your wife's life, is yours to make, with absolutely no backup whatsoever, sometimes deciding on a bad outcome and going for it, is better than blundering into a worse situation.

[soay]

Imagine all your electrics go out. Has the alternator failed? Will the engine just stop at some point?
Well, unless that aircraft had a Thielert engine, there's absolutely no reason why a failed alternator or battery should affect the engine. That's why they still use magnetos.

[BWBI]

SDB73,

Very well put, my thoughts in one. A terrible decision to have to make, RIP

[Genghis the Engineer]

Imagine all your electrics go out

I don't need to imagine it, I've had it happen - both night and day: albeit always VFR.

Each time I did the same thing - continued on planned route to destination, make a visual landing, then phoned anybody I needed to to explain what had happened.

I most certainly would not ditch because I had no electronic navaids, lights or radio - and I doubt that any other competent pilot would either.

IFR, which this chap doesn't seem to have been, I still have my vacuum DI and stopwatch and standard teaching is in the case of comms failure to continue as planned.

So, I still think that something must have gone wrong with the aeroplane. (Of course, it could be the mags, which are electrical.)

G

[talkpedlar]

.. standby compass and magneto would still be working just fine, and Alderney would not have been that difficult to find in the prevailing weather conditions. As previously suggested, there's more to this than we so far know. Also the dear lady passenger is alleged to have previously said that her husband was unconscious.. now it is claimed that he pushed her out. Cant imagine that a gent of his financial resources would have skimped on fuel just to save a pew pounds. Very sad. TP

[Fuji Abound]

Yes, I suppose that is what I was getting at. Most of us fly with a hand held GPS and a hand held transceiver - but some dont. We also dont know his fuel state - do we? So, just speculating in general, a loss of electrical power, low on fuel, maybe not certain of position etc all might contribute to this decision - and of course there might well be other factors.

The trouble is it is easy to assume a pilot knows where he is. After 40 minutes of DR perhaps with out the foresight to have considered the wind I can well imagine someone being considerably adrift and the panic setting in when things dont appear when expected.

I am not making excuses, offering explanations or criticising the pilot just offering some thoughts.

I have done a few simulated failures in similiar circustmances with pilots and the results have not always been pretty. ;)

Moreover if you reach the point of being convinced you cant make landfall there are some pretty desolate seas around that area with not much shipping and some very unpleasant seas. There will come a point it is more attractive to land near some ships than end up 15 miles off the French penisula with nothing in sight.

[dont overfil]

Fuji,
I think you are close to the mark.
Compounded by the possibility I see regularly at my local field. Someone joins the queue for fuel, gets fed up waiting and goes flying with what is in the tank.
D.O.

[dublinpilot]

I can quite easily imagine that the pilot had become lost if he was relying on panel avionics, and had a total electrical failure. I can also imagine that he got himself into the state that he had little self hope of finding Alterney.

However all he had to to was turn to North, South or East on his magnetic compass. He was going to hit land pretty soon. West was the only direction that he would have problems finding land! (South East virtually guarantees him land within 15 minutes if he was remotely near his planed track, even if he didn't know where he was)

It's quite likely that his non pilot wife didn't understand what he hold her, or misremembered it. She has been through an incredible ordeal, and the difference between electrical failure and engine failure might have no significance to an 80 year old woman who has been through so much.

How many non-pilots thinks the engine stops if you stall an aeroplane!

Perhaps he told her that they had an engine failure, and she remembers "electrical failure" instead, not appreciating the difference. If you read "engine" where that newspaper says "electrical" it makes a lot more sense.

The other thing to remember is that we are reading it from a newspaper, which we all know constantly reports stuff totally incorrectly.

dp

[Fuji Abound]

Dp - without wishing to split straws at PA28 speeds I think the north coast of France was more liek 45 minutes from the search area. Do I also think for some reason it was not long before darkness fell? If so, with no panel lights, the possibility of a ditching and maybe no night experience there were further influences at work.

SSE would probably bee the better option given the pilot should have had a good idea of how far south he was if less idea how far east or west. The peninsula would have been closer and difficult to miss.

As I said earlier if he didnt feel he could reach land for whatever reason and knew those waters reasonably well he would also know that there isnt much shipping or small boats around at this time of the year once you get outside the shipping lanes. There are also some nasty currents and overfalls even in light winds - you can tell I have been in the waters around there on the odd occasion (as well as over).

What was going through his mind and what problems he had we really dont know and certainly we have learned not too trust the Papers. I am therefore as always very reluctant to speculate but felt the point should be made that any pilot out of sight of land, short on fuel, not sure of their position, with darkness impending and a total power failure is being put to the task before we jump in create the impression that a safe outcome is predictable.

[rneilharvey]

It seems pretty clear that Ian was well of course to the West, for whatever reason.

One possible factor was that on the afternoon in question there was a major wind shift to the East, combined with a significant increase in wind speed. Archive data at the Channel Light Vessel, not a million miles from the area shows this at:

Windfinder - Real time wind & weather report Channel Lightship (http://www.windfinder.com/wind-cgi/stationsbildseite.pl?STATIONSNR=by13&DATUM=2011-11-12)

Certainly if he had lost nav equipment, which I know from many flights on this particular aircraft functioned well, the changing wind might have affected his flight path.

Last night a state of the art French hydrographic ship spent 6 hours searching a grid pattern in the area. She seems not to have stopped, and then moved on so presumably the search was not succesful.

[Fuji Abound]

Interesting, in fact from the point of debate a southerly becoming a strong easterly would, if not allowed for, leave the aircraft further west and not as far south as anticipated.

That amount of wind would also make for a lively sea. In shore would not be the place to ditch.

[mad_jock]

Just thinking that the Pilot was exactly the same age as my grandfather when he had his first stroke which started off the vascular dementia.

There was no fit or limbs not functioning just over the space of an hour he went from switched on, to totally confused and without a clue where he was or where he was going. A day or two later he regained some function but his short term memory was gone.

[fisbangwollop]

It would be interesting to hear at what stage ATC knew there was a problem??

If total electrical failure would he lose everything including the radio??...if so he would be unable to advise ATC of his situation....Also total electrical failure ATC would have lost his transponder response but maybe still been able to see him on primary radar??...unsure at that height if that would have been possible.

How was the incident first reported??....was it by a call from the ship to the coastguard??

So many questions to be answered... but I guess in time, maybe certain questions will be answered but,unless the aircraft is ever recovered and I doubt it ever will be with the ferocious tides in that area I guess we will never know the full truth!!.

[FlyingOfficerKite]

Maybe the problem will never be solved - but maybe his wife recalls an 'electrical problem with the engine' - that is rough running and engine failure due a problem with the mags (or independently carb ice)?

In common with other Posts I would be surprised if anyone would consider ditching with a total electrical failure.

I once had a total electrical failure in a C172 at night over the North Yorks moors en route from Barton to Teesside (black and bleak). No thought of an emergency landing - just how to resolve the issue and land at the nearest suitable airfield (which was Teesside as it turned out). Easily resolved with the aid of (my) mandatory handheld radio for night flights - and the engine was still turning and burning.

Easy to speculate from the comfort of ones armchair.

KR

FOK :)

[IO540]

Of course you are right but in this case we have a survivor clearly saying there was an electrical failure and the pilot decided to ditch voluntarily.

It could be the usual crappy press reporting but it doesn't quite sound like that to me in this case.

Until the survivor comes out with a clear report, we won't be any wiser, but until then it just seems almost totally bizzare.

I say "almost" because I have met PPL holders who thought that a VP prop is implemented with a variable ratio gearbox. Similarly there are loads of DA40TDi / DA42TDi pilots flying who know zilch about the systems involved, etc. It is not totally unbelievable that this pilot decided to ditch in the belief that his engine would stop at any moment.

The converse is that he had an engine problem causing the forced landing, but in that case why not make a radio call? The probability of an engine problem and a concurrent radio failure is absolutely miniscule.

[Genghis the Engineer]

I'm sure that that report has been made, clearly, to the AAIB ops inspector who I'm sure has been out there - and probably back again - by now. I should think it will be in the bulletin (or, less likely, report) when that's published in due course.

G

[funfly]

I flew single engine to Jersey a number of times but I never did it without wearing a full drysuit - and I practised putting it on a few times. This is not being wise after the event but maybe a wake up call for those who go across with just a standard life-vest. I know that they are expensive and you look like Yogi Bear when you wear them but......

[mm_flynn]

I flew single engine to Jersey a number of times but I never did it without wearing a full drysuit - and I practised putting it on a few times. This is not being wise after the event but maybe a wake up call for those who go across with just a standard life-vest. I know that they are expensive and you look like Yogi Bear when you wear them but......

On the other hand, in this particular case dry suits would not have changed the outcome and not withstanding the difficulty of getting into a dinghy, an 80 year old women seems to have successfully achieved just such a feat.

Certainly with no drysuit, no raft, no jacket you have no backup plan and just jackets is a pretty marginal plan in many cases.

[IO540]

I also think that bobbing up and down in a drysuit, with just your head above the swell, you are going to be lucky to get spotted, unless you have an ELT strapped to your head :)

Also, if you require your female passengers to wear that stuff, you will end up spending a whole lot more time on the internet dating sites :E Rubber is not anywhere near as big as it was in the 1970s.

[madlandrover]

Also, if you require your female passengers to wear that stuff, you will end up spending a whole lot more time on the internet dating sites Rubber is not anywhere near as big as it was in the 1970s.

Ahhh, but the right woman will understand :E

[flybymike]

Rubber is not anywhere near as big as it was in the 1970s.
Yes, I have noticed my own diminution over the past forty years as well...

[doubledolphins]

Well I'm not too sure about the accuracy of the Torygraph's story as Tom Cunningham is a retired Commander RNR. He is a former "Commodore" of the RNVR Yacht Club. As was Ian. The story does ring true though. Ian was a sailor first and foremost. And he clearly responded to the emergency as he saw fit. His actions on that terrible afternoon clearly saved Anne-Marie's life. It is tragic that it was at the cost of his own.

RIP.

[IO540]

I did wonder whether somebody with a long background in sailing might have chosen to voluntarily ditch upon getting lost with no radio.

If he really did that, then

His actions on that terrible afternoon clearly saved Anne-Marie's life

is probably not so because they could both have been saved by flying roughly SE until they reached France.

[doubledolphins]

IO your post is both distateful and illogical. Your course of action may have saved both their lives. Ian's course of action did save Anne-Marie's. But let's wait for the full report.

[dublinpilot]

IO your post is both distateful and illogical. Your course of action may have saved both their lives. Ian's course of action did save Anne-Marie's. But let's wait for the full report.

There is nothing illogical about IO540's post. IF, and it's a major IF, what has been reported in the press is correct (and I doubt very much that it is) then there was no reason for anyone's life to be in danger. An electrical failure is not a life risking event. If what they had was a simple electrical failure, then there was no need for anyone's life to be at risk.

[billiboing]

I undertsand the phrase the lady actually used was a "total power failure".

Could this actually be an engine failure as opposed to an electrical failure and the press have interpreted it wrong???

Mind you the press have never been known to get it wrong before have they!

[doubledolphins]

Look at my original posting. Re the Press. Journos will always make mistakes if they have no experience of their subject matter.
It's a pity that DP's quoting of my post has lost the italics. That is my point of logic.
I will make no further comment on this thread out of respect for Ian.

But I tell you this, I have over 11,000 hours, and rising. I have 7 hours total SE Landplanes over water, 2 of those in a PA28. That total will not rise.

[mm_flynn]

In my experience when mainstream media reports on a subject with which I am familiar they almost always get key details wrong. I therefore assume the same is true on all of their reporting.

In aviation accidents specifically, the reporting of 'what went wrong' is almost guaranteed to be wrong. As such, I think a general conversation about 'what should one due with a total electrical failure' could be quite interesting - but its relevance at this stage to this particular accident is just about nil.

dd,

I am assuming your aversion to single engine flight extends to over hostile terrain, over a cloud deck and IMC. Which is fine, a reasonable number of people are twin operators because of that. On the other hand, quite a large number of of people operate singles in such circumstances and the outcomes are not that dissimilar to twins (a surprisingly large number of twins go into the drink around the UK coastline).

[IO540]

I have 7 hours total SE Landplanes over water, 2 of those in a PA28. That total will not rise.

As mm_flynn says, you are not the only one who feels that way emotionally, and it is understandable, but the sadly ditching stats do not support that position at all.

Back to what I posted earlier, sure the press report is likely to be rubbish but if they had an engine failure then why not make a radio call? They would not have lost electrics at the same time as the engine (unless their battery was defective also, but they evidently managed to start the engine with it earlier).

[A and C]

A number of years back the BBC radio news started to report an AAIB enquirry, the numpty reading the report said "the AAIB recomend that more unusual attitude training, errr sorry that should be unusual altitude training was required".

And that was the way it was reported in subsequent news reports.

All the evidence in this accident points towards power failure, that is engine power not electrical power, anything else is likely to be press misinterpretation by stupidity.

[SDB73]

Are we now trying to say that when flying over water, you are just as likely to end up hitting the ocean whether you're in a twin or a single?

And that this statement is supported by statistics?

I'd be very interested to see these statistics. This sounds very much to me like a total (and potentially dangerous / harmful) misunderstanding of the numbers, but I'd be delighted to eat my words.

[maxred]

Stats tell us very little in these cases. Most of the reports I have read recently, involve twins ditching, not SEP. Most recent crashes I have read, recently, on land, involve twins. So what?

Until the facts are known in this incident, then talk of SEP vs Twin over water (done previously), twins vs SEP over cloud (done previously) is frankly futile.

This again would appear a culmination of smallish incidents which ended up with the pilot sadly losing his life. Again, at present, actual facts appear scarce, therefore, the report will again be sobering reading. They always are.

Anyway, flying SE, or NE for that matter, would have brought them to land. The outcome may not have been different though.:suspect:

[mm_flynn]

Are we now trying to say that when flying over water, you are just as likely to end up hitting the ocean whether you're in a twin or a single?

And that this statement is supported by statistics?

I'd be very interested to see these statistics. This sounds very much to me like a total (and potentially dangerous / harmful) misunderstanding of the numbers, but I'd be delighted to eat my words.
It is almost impossible to get such a statistic as you would need to know something like the hours of operation over water of the two different aircraft types .... and that piece of information doesn't exist. You then wind up making assumptions about how similar or different are the flight profiles and hours of operation of the two aircraft types.

The NTSB accident stats show that 'engine failure' in a twin causes fatal accidents at a rate that is only slightly less than a single (but many of these for a twin are at takeoff landing and most of the enroute ones are running/mismanaging of fuel).

The other 'stat' is anecdotal of how many twins go swimming around the UK vs singles, and from memory there have been a few twins in the last couple of years and a few more (but not many more) singles.

[SDB73]

I totally agree that the stats are extremely unlikely to give us this info. This was my point, and that sooner or later I sincerely hope that people stop making statements like IO540's as though they are cast iron fact.

So much rubbish like this is spouted on forums in all subjects. When the subject has the chance to affect some people's judgement which could kill them, then those who do the spouting carry a greater responsibility, and should respect that.

In IO540's case (and similar) this is compounded by the fact that he posts SO MUCH that his misinformation has a far greater reach and relative impact on the quality of information available on this forum - making his repeatedly-posted jumped-to conclusions appear to be even more factual.

[IO540]

So why don't you put in a bit of effort and try to counter it with your "facts"?

[SDB73]

That's ludicrous.

You spout a blanket statement based on some seemingly imaginary stats. My counter is to ask you to provide those stats. And your retort is to say that I need to counter your non-factual, unsupported statement with oposing facts? Extraordinary.

I'll have a go at that. "The Lochness Monster is real". Prove me wrong with your facts otherwise I must be correct!

Peter. Do you have these statistics or not?

[abgd]

Hmm... The cancer argument seems a little off the mark to me.

Statistically, we're all quite likely to die of pneumonia. However, we're very unlikely to die young of pneumonia, or even kill a loved one, as we are in aviation. 'Cancer', whatever that is, is a slightly more complicated question, but it's still true that it doesn't hit most people until they're reasonably old, and eating sensibly and not smoking are far better ideas than most (but not all) screening programmes.

So back to worrying about twins, ditchings and things we have some influence over. There are a lot of ways of dying in aviation, even if individual ones are reasonably uncommon, so in my book it does make sense to discuss them.

My respects and thoughts are with the family of the gentleman who died. I hope it doesn't come over as disrespectful to discuss the accidents.

[goldeneaglepilot]

It’s very easy to say that we will never do something in aviation because of the risk. In reality is the risk greater than (for arguments sake) crashing your car, or worse someone else crashing into you?

To me it’s all about risk management, if you’re flying a single over water – then how far is it? How long to land? How high will you be. It’s no different to flying over hilly terrain or even flying in winter over snow fields. It is all about risk management, if something goes wrong then how well are you prepared and equipped to deal with it?

Personally I don’t like single engine piston at night, the only reason that I will fly a turbo prop at night is due to the greater reliability compared to piston engines. If either stops then the outcome is going to be difficult to predict (you as the pilot influence the outcome of landing into blackness less than the influence of luck). To me I have offset the risk by having an engine with proven improved reliability. The darkness is a factor I can’t change, the other factors I can.

I would be happy to fly a single engine piston aircraft over water, provided I had taken reasonable precautions in case anything went wrong. It’s no different to putting a shovel, blanket, hot flask and warm clothing into your car if you’re going out when it’s a snow storm.

Manage the risk, think of the “what if” factors and don’t work on the assumption it will never happen to you. We all carry torches at night when flying, how many light failures have happened in reality. It’s the same with carrying a raft – how often do you need it? Also immersion suits? Would you be in the water that long? Or is a PLB and pocket flares a better way of getting picked up quickly.

Take a look on Google at PainsWessex Personal Mini Flare Distress Signals This kit contains 9 red aerial flares and an integral penjector all enclosed in a tough water resistant case. Flares rise to 46m and are visible at 5 miles in daylight and 10 miles at night depending on weather conditions.
I would rather have those in my kit than an immersion suit in the English channel, Immersion suits are fine but I would rather someone knew where I was quickly rather than SAR spending hours looking for me.

[IO540]

SDB73 - how many people share your pprune login?

[mikehallam]

Dear SDB73,

I think you'll be forced to yield.
Posters unable to stop contributing their unfailingly superior knowledge will eventually dominate any subject.

mike hallam
(not a pseudonym)

[Fuji Abound]

I have seen a few studies on ditchings - albiet mostly conducted in the US. These suggest that survival rates are much higher than you might anticipate. For example in a ten year period based on just over 200 reports the survival rate was a little over 90%.

However as with any stats. a proper understanding can only follow from the ability to correctly interpret the data. There are many obvious factors which will impact on surviving a ditching; in particular in and around the UK the temperature of the water and the speed with which the crew are recovered is critical. Needless to say so is the ability to exit the aircraft as the evidence indicates most GA types sink quickly. The fitness, size and weight of the crew are factors and in this case so is the design of the aircraft.

Never the less I think it is safe to conclude the risk of an engine failure followed by a ditching that results in loss of life is an very rare occurence so in terms of am I likely to die in that way, the answer is you are not.

Categorically without reference to this accident, the vast majority of accidents are down to human failure in some way. Theoretically a twin is always safer than a single, but the theory is substantially eroded because of the high rate at which pilots mismanage twin aircraft - be it running out of fuel because they dont fully understand the more complicated fuel systems on some twins to botched EFATOs.

Once again this makes any comparison meaningless unless the reader has a propoer understanding of the factors involved.

Ask the question how safe is flying (over water, at night, in IMC or whatever permutation you wish) and the answer should be caveated with how current and well trained is the pilot, how careful has the pilot been with regards to the maintenance of his aircraft and what precautions has he taken to stack the odds in his favour? If the answers are all weighted in the pilots favour then inevitably you will be much safer in a twin than a single, but in both instance the risk is so small that some would argue it hardly warrants concern - you would do far better eliminating other risks in your life such as having a annual screen for cancer - very few of us do but statistically there is a far greater chance that will kill you.

In reality it seems to me most peoples perception of risk when it comes to flying (and lots of other things) is qualitative, or should I say emotional. We think about the risk of a flight over water, but we dont think about the risk of cancer or hypertension being good examples. If we did and applied the same criteria I have little doubt we would all have far more regular health screens and we would all approach flying (never mind flying over water) in a different way. In reality we often debate the risk of flying over water in a single but we never ask why we dont have annual health checks.

[IO540]

In any system where a function is dual-redundant, and the redundancy has no resulting downside, it is obviously true that the probability of a failure of the whole system is reduced.

So a twin should be less likely to go down per airborne hour than a single.

On top of that most ME failures of an engine that happen during cruise go unreported and will never appear in any stats, which results in ME forced landings to be over-represented, again per airborne hour.

Unfortunately reality interferes with this, and the key is the "no resulting downside" bit.

And there are several downsides:

- EFATO scenarios require a high degree of pilot currency

- More complex fuel systems; in some cases you can be drawing fuel from one tank while the gauge(s) show the contents of a different tank

- Higher operating cost, resulting in reduced pilot currency

- Higher operating cost, resulting in less picky attitudes to maintenance because you carry a spare engine (you can tell I like to avoid controversy :E )

- Most twins are > 1999kg so there is a big incentive to file "VFR" to avoid the IFR route charges (this is an awfully persistent trend in ME CFITs)

- Most twin types have been out of production for decades, and their age makes maintenance to any particular standard more expensive

One might also think twins fly more hazardous missions, which will further skew the stats against them. I am not sure whether this is true today; the pilots who I know who fly what I call light twins do not fly in conditions any more hazardous than SE pilots I know of similar experience. There are also plenty of deiced singles flying around, which equipment-for-equipment are a match for any light twin. 2 engines do not alone deliver any specific capability w.r.t. weather.

Those who don't like my posts don't have to read them. Contrary to popular belief, there is no requirement to be on the internet to correct every perceived instance of somebody having written something one disagrees with :)

[SDB73]

Hi Peter,

Is this another conclusion?

I do not share this login. Why do you ask?

And I think we can all see you don't have the stats you mentioned. So parking the (now answered) question as to whether you have the stats, I'll move on, in the hope that this brief exchange has helped at least some people avoid perpetuating your misinformation.

mikehallam,
You're probably right, but I'm one of life's perpetual optimists!! :)

Fuji
However as with any stats. a proper understanding can only follow from the ability to correctly interpret the data.

Thank god I'm not on my own!! Wise words .. however ..

so in terms of am I likely to die in that way, the answer is you are not.

Slight pedantry, but I think it's important.. I don't think that is necessarily the case. Statistics are incredibly easy to misinterpret, to which you've alluded. There are too many factors to make that statement. I think the statement you are taking a little out of context is "PILOTS don't very often die in that way". That doesn't mean YOU aren't likely to die that way. By extremely careful analysis of the stats, you MIGHT find that the majority of deaths have been a certain age range, PiC hours, or engine life span, or specific route, etc, etc, etc. If you personally fall into the high risk area, then you are possibly WAY more likely to die than "the rest". Similarly, you might fall into the low risk category and be almost inconceivably likely to die that way.

This is the important point of threads like this. I am extremely greatful for them, as they enable me to form a more rich picture of the risks, and how to mitigate them. GoldenEaglePilot puts this perfectly. Control the risks you can control, and decide whether you're willing to expose yourself to the risks you can't.

But you can only make that judgement based on a rich understanding of what can / does go wrong, and the successful / unsuccessful ways of dealing with them.

"The vast majority of accidents are down to human failure".

This is one we all hear a lot. Instinctively I would guess this is true, but I haven't seen any statistics to prove this. Is this something that someone spouted on a forum one day and we all took as being gospell? I genuinely don't know either way, so can't comment - and so wouldn't comment. I'd love to know for sure though.

but in both instance [twin/single] the risk is so small that some would argue it hardly warrants concern

Again, a very wise observation, and it might be that (to use statistitian speak) the sample is too small to draw any conclusions on whatsoever. So in which case, one would have to make up their own mind about what they GUESS, based on the vast web of knowledge and understanding that fills our minds when we immerse ourselves in a topic, like flying.

statistically there is a far greater chance that [cancer] will kill you.

really? you sure? :)

You are absolutely right, though, that most people's (probably all peoples to some extent) assessment of risk is more emotional rather than logical.

We also tend to perceive a risk as smaller the more we've taken it. First time you bungie jump or parachute jump, or take off, or run down the stairs, etc, etc we perceive the risk as lower. That's part of how our subconscious works, and is the same mechanism which drives out "instincts", as we consider past events as proof of what's likely to come.

I think this mechanism tends to lead some types of people to make sweeping statements, as they apply their historic personal experience to situations about which they do not have all the facts.. unable to accept that there could be circumstances which completely and totally change their viewpoint. These people tend to gravitate towards forums in my (vast) experience! :)

[SDB73]

IO540

I want to make something clear.

Apart from ...

most ME failures of an engine that happen during cruise go unreported

... which I don't see how you could support with stats, (as they're unreported!)...

I thought your last post was you at your best. It was considered, informative, had some interesting counterintuitive points made in it, and was on the whole factual or stated clearly as opinion.

I have read many of your posts of the years, some of which have been incredibly interesting and helpful - as is your website - and for this I have thanked you personally (PM) in the past as well as on here.

My initial response to you was not because I "didn't like your post(s)", it was merely a question as to whether you could provide the stats you stated, as a member of this community who would like to know the truth.

Since then, you avoided answering that question, and then started getting shirty with me, with bold text berating me for not putting enough effort into the thread.

Please be clear, that my concern is not whether I like / dislike you or your posts, my concern is that I have seen too many people believe statements like yours on forums and then go off and waste a load of money or make other poor decisions. In this case, those decisions could cost someone their / their loved ones life, so I just felt it important to seek clarity.

[RomeoZulu]

Now that Fuji Abound has brought some sense back into the topic (the contents of which I entirely agree with) maybe I can add something to the discussion. I was privi to this very sad accident as I was listening to my radio at the time (as I very often do) and can recollect the following circumstances. Guernsey ATC had been calling the (unknown) but thought it was RG for some time as it had entered the CI Zone without calling and was heading in a SW direction squarking 7600. This would seem to rule out electrical failure. It was asking it to perform various turns and change squark if reading. Nothing happened so they asked a PA28 with instructor on board which was in the circuit in Guernsey to go and have a look. RG was about 23 nm nw of Guernsey and therefore about 20 nm west of Alderney (its destination). In the time it took the local aircraft to reach the last known position (about 12 mins) RG had disappeared from the radar. The Russian ship was doing a 180 to return to the ditching site so this pinpointed the accident site. It was at this time that the emergency services ramped up.The rib from the freighter was first on scene to rescue within about 20 minutes (I think) from ditching.The English Channel at this time if the year is just past its peak warmth. It is odd why the ditching had to take place. The visibilty was ok over the channel. I have my own thoughts but will keep them to myself.

As regards flying over water it is a management of risks as per Fuji Abound. I have been flying a SEP for the last 42 years out of Guernsey. Our initial training is done about 20 nm south over the Roche Douvres Lighthouse so well outside gliding distance of anywhere, we wear lifejackets when in the circuit as we are over the water and in all honesty the local fields are too small to make a successful forced landing so the water is more then likely the best option anyway. I will not fly at night over water unless I have too (I know the engine does'nt know its dark but I do).We all carry dingies (which are serviced regularly) and wear life jackets at all times. We all (most) have PLB'S.

I think there is a church service in Alderney tomorrow for Ian so maybe you will all show some respect in your posts please.

[Fuji Abound]

My comment with regards to cancer was slightly tongue in cheek as you gathered but it does raise another useful illustrative point. In fact the current risk of dieing from cancer during your life time if you are a male is 1:4 - slightly better odds for a female. The life time risk is therefore high. We spend very little of our lifetime flying a single over the water and certainly not a life time. So is the average GA pilot more likely to die of cancer or from ditching - without doubt far more likely to die of cancer. If he spent his lifetime flying over water, you would arrive at a different conclusion.

With regards to most accidents being caused by the pilot or avoidably poor maintenance I dont think we need the stats to support the premise. If you read the reports it is apparent just how many pilots are candid enough to admit the accident was their fault - by extrapolation one suspects that this would be equally true of those that sadly kill themselves.

However I do agree that there are many myths that should be challenged.

There is much written that cannot be supported in just about every walk of life. I certainly dont have all the answers but have taken a little interest over the years in the stats that are published and are relevant to the things that interest me as a useful basis for hopefully adding some susbstance to a debate.

[mm_flynn]

With regards to most accidents being caused by the pilot or avoidably poor maintenance I dont think we need the stats to support the premise. If you read the reports it is apparent just how many pilots are candid enough to admit the accident was their fault - by extrapolation one suspects that this would be equally true of those that sadly kill themselves.

in Europe the data and analysis is incomplete at best. In the US there are a number of detail analysis based on the ASF database. These consistently show pilot error such as loss of control in landing/takeoff, low flying, LOC enroute, stall/spin, VFR into IMC, overloading, trying to achieve performance beyond book spec (too sort, to heavy, to far for the fuel), etc. There is no doubt that pilot error (as implicitly defined by the prior list) is the overwhelming cause of accidents.

some of these pilot errors may have been prompted by a mechanical problem. The best example is a ME aircraft crashing as the result of loosing one engine. flown correctly (assuming loaded per POH) this should not result in a crash, but sometimes it does and in this case it often gets classed as pilot error.

[Jetblu]

Some very good posts, especially by goldeneaglepilot, SDB73 and Fuji.

I cannot see the logic expressed in this thread of 2 door cockpit aircraft (TB20/C150/C172 etc) versus 1 door aircraft (Beech V35, Beech33, PA28 Series and PA44 etc) :confused:

Is the consensus that TB20/C172/C182/C210/PA28 are dangerous because they have no doors for passengers seated in row 2 or 3 ? If so, maybe time to consider the Piper Saratoga ;) , Piper Lance, Beech A36, Piper Seneca and Beech 58

I have first hand experience of a PA32R ditching through mechanical failure and it was not pleasant. 1 door was suffice for me. It was jammed open at approx 300ft with full harmess seatbelt pulled up another notch prior to splashdown across the swell.

Life Jackets were not being worn but were in the back of the aircraft, because one always think that it will never happen to them :eek: I was into the back of the aircraft to recover lifejacket and out of the aircraft in what seemed like 30 seconds as self preservation kicks in fast.

I have been across many times since in SEP but I am now more confident in the C310/C421 (both with 1 door/airstair) and escape panel.

[SDB73]

Couldn't agree more with Fuji's post.

I also think your stat of 1:4 men dieing of Cancer is - as you've deduced - as close as uncontravertible evidence that your previous statement was probably completley accurate!

Also, I share your feelings about pilot induced accidents.

I'm pleased, however, that you haven't taken my post personally, and clearly understood the sentiment.

[funfly]

Nothing to do with the initial subject of this thread but it is my opinion that many people fly over water under the 'it won't happen to me' philosophy. Familiarity breeds contemp and I would ask anyone who flies regularly around the Channel Islands if they still simply tie a life jacket around their middle as a sort of token gesture?

[maxred]

Slight thread drift I know, but this topic has enlarged, therefore:-

I am a member of The American Bonanza Society, a community who has at its heart the promotion of Beechcraft aircraft, the continuance of the Beech fleet, and most importantly, safety through communication.

web site American Bonanza Society (http://www.bonanza.org), worth a peek. The crux however, is the BPPP. It is a pilot proficiency programme which offers type specific training for people new to the fleet, i.e you buy a Baron, it can come with 10 or xxx hours BPPP.

You buy a Bonanza, it again can come with BPPP. Yes, it is run in the States only, BUT, it is the premise and concept that is bold. It is also is run with superbly qualified instructors and individuals who wish to impart training and knowledge, specific to type. These are complex aircraft, and the recognition that they are, is the first step. Too many people buy an aeroplane, think they can get in and fly, and fail totally to not only understand the issues surrounding the complexity, but how to get the thing in the air or back on the ground, safely. Incidents such as this tragic event, again bring to the fore the discussion of safety. No amount of training/experience/relevence can be too much. IMHO.

[Pilot DAR]

I helped with a few salvages over the years, and this involved occasional swims into the cabins of upside down submerged floatplanes. It is very disorienting in there! Ever since, I wear either a life jacket, or floater suit (temperature dependent) while flying at all, over water.

I fly over water a lot, though lakes, so not too far from shore generally. I land on the water a lot. Lots of times, even in the amphibian, an attempt to land on the water would result in a crash (too rough). I'm somewhat afraid of ditching a fixed gear landplane, or any aircraft in rough water. I'm very afraid of being not detectable out there after the plane sinks, and drowning.

In addition to the life jacket, my cell phone is clipped to the life jacket in a water proof bag (available for music players), and I always have a whistle, and some form of signal light. It's the least I can do to prevent being someone's bad statistic.

[cats_five]

Pilot DAR, I would have an EPIRB clipped to me as well as the mobile phone if I was doing what you are doing.

[flybymike]

One or two percent of pilots die in aircraft accidents?
How many licenced active pilots are there in the UK? (genuine question)
20,000? (pure speculation) so 200 or 400 pilots a year get killed in aeroplanes? I think not. What about all this talk one hears of one fatality per 100,000 hours etc? Have all these dead people clocked up a hundred thousand hours before drawing the short straw?

[peregrineh]

apologies if people have already written about this - is there a ditching course that one can attend in the UK that anybody knows of?

[BackPacker]

apologies if people have already written about this - is there a ditching course that one can attend in the UK that anybody knows of?

I did a maritime survival course. The same stuff they run on weekdays for oil rig crews was run by volunteers from a diving school on Saturdays. Same theory, same pool, same everything. Except we wore our dive suits instead of drysuits.

It included dunker training in a mock helicopter. The feeling of desorientation is very sobering.

Unfortunately it's in Dutch only:
Indoor | Get Wet Maritiem (http://www.getwet.nl/index.php/duikers/maritieme-trainingen/)

You might be lucky and find the same concept in the UK. Otherwise you'll need to look for the professional courses, but they won't be cheap.

[peregrineh]

many thanks

[Fuji Abound]

Aviation Safety Training | Oxford Aviation Academy - OAA.com (http://www.oaa.com/pages/training_courses/aviation_safety.php)

and scroll down.

[execExpress]

Search "Underwater Escape Training - Andark (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCMQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.andark.co.uk%2Fother-training%2Funderwater-escape%2Fhuet%2F&ei=VVrOTq3mL4PJswbvl92eBA&usg=AFQjCNEuRMd_G9nIZjcHheCuuAYTAS8f4g)"for an option near Hamble river, Hampshire, UK.


Training such as this is not 'tick-box'. The situations experienced and skills learned radically change behaviours and likely outcomes in a real post-ditching survival situation.

[abgd]

My comment with regards to cancer was slightly tongue in cheek as you gathered but it does raise another useful illustrative point. In fact the current risk of dieing from cancer during your life time if you are a male is 1:4 - slightly better odds for a female. The life time risk is therefore high. We spend very little of our lifetime flying a single over the water and certainly not a life time. So is the average GA pilot more likely to die of cancer or from ditching - without doubt far more likely to die of cancer. If he spent his lifetime flying over water, you would arrive at a different conclusion.

I tried to make some kind of reply to this yesterday, but I don't think I put my point over very well. I'm going to try again, because I think it's actually quite important.

I remember a similar argument a while ago on a different forum, where some petrolheads were complaining that 3000 road deaths a year were nothing in comparison with 30,000 deaths per year due to pneumonia, and therefore restricting their right to drive like morons was a disproportionate infringement of their civil liberties. However, the truth of the matter is that the 'typical' patient who dies of pneumonia is probably an elderly person who has already had a stroke and who swallows their food the wrong way, or who has had a fall and broken some ribs and can't cough to clear their lungs. They tend to be very frail, and even if you hit them with strong antibiotics and get them over their pneumonia, they tend to die of something else (another stroke, a pulmonary embolism) a few weeks or months down the line. I'm not arguing for a moment that older people aren't valuable, or that they don't deserve good care. Simply that we will all get to a point where our time has come, and at which medical treatment becomes at best a losing battle.

People tend to get cancer a little younger and whilst they're still relatively fit, but it's still, by and large, a disease that strikes people when they're older:

Cancer mortality by age - UK statistics : Cancer Research UK (http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/mortality/age/)

In contrast, when relatively young people meet violent and unexpected deaths through transport accidents, the loss is, if not far greater, then at least far less inevitable. We all know that we're going to die but we hope that it will be at a good age, after we've gotten to know our grandkids - who will remember us fondly. We don't like to imagine ourselves being scraped off the ground, with the police trying to match limbs to torsos and our dependants wrangling with insurance companies whilst trying to grieve. All deaths are not the same.

But perhaps more to the point, non-smokers don't have a huge degree of control over how likely they are to get cancer - there are a few very specific types of cancer such as cervical cancer that it's worth screening for - for most types it's a bad idea. A healthy diet is a good idea, and so is going to see your doctor for unexplained weight loss, blood in your stool, or worrying moles.

Again, I'm not arguing that old people are worthless. But as an individual, and assuming that you enjoy life, would you rather die at 40 or 80? Unless your answer is that you wouldn't mind either way, it makes sense to concentrate on avoiding the most immediate causes of death.

Another way of looking at it would be to think about how much different diseases shorten your life on average. A disease that kills an 85 year old probably didn't shave more than a few months or years off their life; if you plow an aircraft into the ground or sea aged 40, you might cut your life expectancy by 45 -50 years.

About 1-2% of us will die in aircraft accidents. Excepting medical emergencies, private pilots who die through accidents will almost always be fit (otherwise they wouldn't be flying) and will have a lot to look forward to in life. And whilst fate can throw anybody a curve-ball, I like to think that I have a reasonably high degree of control over whether or not I die in an aircraft accident - which is not the case for cancer.

[IO540]

That's a very good post.

I would however add that a lot of cancer screening is actively discouraged by the NHS not because it doesn't work but because either (a) the cost-benefit argument does not meet NHS criteria for what a life is worth in their books (ex: the cost of £1000-a-time MRIs or biopsies for prostate cancer), or (b) there is no effective treatment anyway.

As regards ditching, my own take on it is that if you are not out of the cockpit, standing on the wing, with the life raft pack outside the cockpit and the activation cord in your hand, before the plane sinks, then you have messed up. That is what one must focus on achieving immediately upon ditching, plus grabbing the ELT (I have 2) and the emergency bag on the way out. I brief passengers accordingly, and twice.

Some people might think the raft is self inflating, or that it is OK to jump in and swim after it and climb in, etc.

I read somewhere that 15% of people die accidentally, so if 1-2% of pilots die in aircraft accidents, what does that tell us? It probably tells us that we spend far too little time flying :)

[wsmempson]

ABGB, my brain is too small and I've become distracted by the whole age argument; is the point that you are making, related to the age (79 years old) of the pilot who ditched their aircraft off Guernsey due to an electrical failure?

[flybymike]

if 1-2% of pilots die in aircraft accidents, what does that tell us?
It tells me that is a load of bollox.
One or two per cent of pilots die in aircraft accidents?
How many licenced active pilots in the UK? (genuine question) 20,000?
pure speculation. So 200 to 400 pilots get killed every year? I think not.
What about all this talk one hears of one fatality per hundred thousand hours etc? Did all these dead pilots have that many hours before they perished?

[mm_flynn]

FBM,

It is not that 1-2% die EACH year. It is 1-2% die over time. So if you have 20,000 active pilots and they each fly for 10 years on average, then 20 to 40 will die per year. All of those numbers seem broadly consistent with the UK experience. The quoted percentage is certainly not out by an order of magnitude.

[frontlefthamster]

Statistics... A flexible friend.

Perhaps I am unlucky, but in my non-military and non-testing experience, considering friends or acquaintances (let's say, people I knew and who knew me well enough to stop and say hello): seven fatalities in twenty years. In most military flying and most testing, the numbers are higher, but the degree of self-selection is greater too. I'd rather not think on that for too long, especially in civil testing.

mm flynn's numbers are within an order of magnitude, I reckon. Comfortably.

[flybymike]

they each fly for 10 years on average
Ah,that explains it. They were mere ten thousand hour pilots...;)

(It's OK I can see what you are saying now.)

[abgd]

I read somewhere that 15% of people die accidentally, so if 1-2% of pilots die in aircraft accidents, what does that tell us? It probably tells us that we spend far too little time flying http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/smile.gif

Like!

Though there's a flaw there, too. If your average pilot lives 700,000 hours, and is flying for 7000 of them (known overguesstimate), we would expect only 0.15% of pilots to die flying, if it were as safe as life is on average.

[abgd]

To answer a few points:

No, I certainly wasn't alluding to the age of the pilot in question. I was making a more general point that aviation is dangerous, and it's worthwhile taking safety seriously. It always seems slightly unseemly when somebody dies - to be simultaneously aware that a person has lost their life, and to try and learn what one can from it. But I think we should.

I should have been a bit more careful about defining 'work' - you can argue that a screening test that finds untreatable cancers 'works', but the NHS would generally argue that such a test wouldn't be worthwhile.

Another issue is that there isn't just a financial cost of screening tests - many of them find a proportion of false positives, and there are risks to the cascade of further investigations and operations that they spark off. For example, a colonoscopy (for suspected bowel cancer) is a pretty safe procedure, but if you were to do one on everybody in the UK you would kill a few thousand people by causing bowel perforations. If you just pick on people with a family history of bowel cancer, or other 'risk factors', then the equation works out strongly in favour of screening again.

Going back to the topic, if we can have ballistic parachutes, why not flotation devices on the outside of aircraft?

[aceparts]

Trying to look on the bright side for a moment and through the tragedy of it all.

This guy died while doing something he loved at a great age - apparently he didn't get his license until he was 76! He certainly lived life to the full and will be remembered in my mind as a positive role model.

What are the odds of any of us dying in our old age doing something we enjoy and not in some care home sitting in our own pi55?

[IO540]

Though there's a flaw there, too. If your average pilot lives 700,000 hours, and is flying for 7000 of them (known overguesstimate), we would expect only 0.15% of pilots to die flying, if it were as safe as life is on average.

Flying is definitely more dangerous than lying in bed, but you have to have an interesting life and that comes at an increased risk.

It's a bit like making money. If you never did anything interesting, kept your trousers zipped up (or followed some equivalent procedure ;) ), and invested every penny in financial instruments, you would die with a few million in the bank.

What are the odds of any of us dying in our old age doing something we enjoy and not in some care home sitting in our own pi55?

You are totally right, and the answer is "not great". Dementia is BIG BUSINESS, one of the biggest service industries going, and the inside of most care homes is not nice (my mum is in one). The name of the game is to take the State funding level (~£500/week in Sussex), fill the place up, and run it minimally. The good ones are £1000/week. It's a haven for crooks, of course, and an easy way to make money. Even the head of the local NHS practice runs 3 homes on the side. I very much hope to die doing something interesting.

[ak7274]

As most aircraft are more or less hollow inside the fuselage. Why not emergency flotation devices inside? An airbag run down the centre which can be inflated on contact with the water? I know it wont help the aircraft float level, but being visible for much longer will aid in being spotted and also act as a flotation device.

Just a thought

[goldeneaglepilot]

The biggest worry of such a system would be accidental deployment. You might as well just have two life rafts, one for you and one for the aircraft!! Imagine the problems with control should the emergency flotation device inflate accidently inside the aircraft....

Personally I would rather just get away from the aircraft, into the raft as quickly as I could, in the simplest way possible.

A PLB, flares and fluorescein all add to your visibility in the water.

[abgd]

and an easy way to make money.

I'm not sure about that - perhaps it is for the crooks. There's a reason the good ones cost £1000 a week. Social services generally pay below cost, and nursing homes are obliged to take a certain proportion of social services residents - I've really never understood how they get away with this. The outcome is that if you don't keep your nursing home full, and with a high proportion of private residents, then you can lose money very quickly.

~~~

I am always pleased to hear about older people doing things like flying, and this chap's forced landing was good enough for his wife to survive it.

~~~

I see the point about accidental deployment being an issue, but you could make the same argument against ballistic recovery systems. Actually, could you combine the two?

I guess the real argument is that you would have to take all that weight with you even when flying over Arizona, whereas with a life-raft you only need to take it when you need it.

[IO540]

You could always buy a pressurised plane, and make sure you do a really really smooth ditching so the hull doesn't come apart :)

I cannot see it sinking, so long as the outflow valves are shut (no idea if that is possible).

One can pick up an old PA46 for not much these days.

[BackPacker]

A PLB, flares and fluorescein all add to your visibility in the water.

I would go for a smoke canister instead of flares, assuming you're flying in daylight. And instead of fluorescein I would get this:

Rescuestreamer :: Rescue Technologies Corp. - rescuestreamer (http://www.rescuestreamer.com/)

[IO540]

The best thing in a life raft would be a nice warm gurl :)

[flybymike]

I cannot see it sinking, so long as the outflow valves are shut (no idea if that is possible).


I believe it is. I think Sully with typical presence of mind took such precautions before ditching in the Hudson River.

(He may even have had a stewardess lined up for the liferaft...)

[Deeday]

The A320 has a guarded "Ditching" push-button that makes the outflow valves close, but on Sully's plane they didn't have enough time to get to that item of the emergency check-list.

It wouldn't have made much difference though, as the rear bulkhead cracked under the pressure of the splashdown.

[BackPacker]

It wouldn't have made much difference though, as the rear bulkhead cracked under the pressure of the splashdown.

And this was probably the best executed ditching possible, in the best possible circumstances (no waves to speak of, what I remember from the videos I've seen.)

It always makes me smile when I'm reading through the seatpocket safety card, and see pictures of the plane after ditching, where everybody calmly takes of the high-heels and steps into the slide doubling as a liferaft. The waves drawn on these cards are no more than 10cm high. In the North Atlantic? Are you kidding?