C130 Water Landing- been tried?
 

The Hudson River story dredged up crewroom banter from the 80's where someone reckoned a Herc was landed on water deliberately (during the testing phase?) with not wonderful results.

Any truth in it? The carrier landing don't count!

CG

I was told that a Brazilian Herc ditched after running out of fuel. The ditching was successful and it stayed afloat for a while.

Apparently all crew survived the ditching but by the time the rescue had been effected there had been one fatality; the Captain shot the Nav for getting them lost.

Don't know of authenticity but it's a good story anyhow!

I'm no expert on the piloting side of performing the ditching manoeuvre, but assuming it survived impact, the high-wing design means the fuselage would sit much lower in the water and probably tilted well to one side. Getting a full load of pax out of the top hatches would also be interesting.

N Joe

Columbian.

On 22 Nov 1996 a US (ANG?) C130, call sign King 56, crashed in the Pacific Ocean after all 4 engines failed and the crew attempted to ditch the aircraft. 10 of the 11 crew were killed when the aircraft broke up on impact with the water.

I recall at the time there was much discussion about water landings/ditching and that whilst there had been several attempts there had never been a successful one.

Columbian ditching in 1982: Date: 16 OCT 1982

Type: Lockheed C-130B Hercules
Operator: Fuerza Aérea Colombiana
Registration: FAC1003
C/n / msn: 3572
First flight: 1960
Crew: Fatalities: / Occupants:
Passengers: Fatalities: / Occupants:
Total: Fatalities: 5 / Occupants: 13
Airplane damage: Written off
Airplane fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair)
Location: 330 km (206.3 mls) E off Cape May, NJ, USA (Atlantic Ocean)
Phase: En route (ENR)
Nature: Military
Departure airport: Terceira-Lajes AFB, Azores (TER/LPLA), Portugal
Destination airport: Bermuda-Kindley Field NAS (NWU), Bermuda

Narrative:

Ditched in Atlantic Ocean in 55kt winds after running out of fuel en route Azores-Bermuda due to navigation system failure; the Hercules remained afloat for 2 days.

http://www.spectrumwd.com/c130/image2/c130_690.jpg

Heard they had to deliberately sink the Columbian Herk as it drifted into the shipping lanes and posed a hazard. Could just be rumour to make a good story better - also heard the Nav died of lead poisoning. :}

Of course, there's also Jockey 14 - the AC-130H that crashed off the coast of Somalia in '94 or '95. The USAF made a training tape out of interviews of the surviving crew.

Ditching is not something I'm keen to try in the Mighty Hercules...

Just for the record - the country is ColOmbia, thus making the C130 ColOmbian.

ColOmbian Crash
 

Not such a good story with 5 fatalities. And the list of hull losses on Wikipedia is a tad sobering too....

Given the high wing, and the fact it ditched in the ocean when there was 55Kts of wind, I think 'only' 5 deaths was a very good result and showed excellent skills by the crew.

Lockheed did propose a flying boat C-130 and did model/tank tests; I think it was aimed at the Japan ASDF (MSDF?) which eventually bought the Shin-Meiwa US-1.

The Colombian deaths were all on the flight deck - so I am told. Survivors were down the back. apparently, the flight deck had a lot more than the 'standard' 4 crewmembers at impact.

Would i be correct in saying an RAF C130 ditched in the sea with Para's onboard, circa 1970's...??
Think i read a snippet somewhere years ago...!!

Mr Loader
To quote Wikipedia, are you thinking of this?

• November 9, 1971 : An RAF C-130K, XV216, c/n 4243, from 24 Sqn crashed into the sea off Pisa with 46 Italian paratroopers onboard. There were no survivors.

Mr PW,

thats the one i think i heard about...

tried to google it, but i couldnt access google prior to my posting on subject..
sorry to hear no-one got out...

Farfrompuken,


shooting the Nav' sounds a tad harsh !

Then again, I can think of some people who should have been shot before they even boarded the aircraft...

Re-XV216 Crash Off Pisa
 

I was in XV217, 34 years later dropping Italian paratroops into Pisa (Ex Ponteveccio).
We were told that it was the first time Italian troops had dropped into Italy from a UK aircraft since the crash and it felt a bit strange being in XV217 following in the footsteps of XV216.
Needless to say all went well.

I believe the captain of the Colombian Herk was the Chief of the Air Force.

Torpy is colombian?