Ultralight Crash Banks Strait Tasmania
 

I know that its an Ultralight, but these two guys were rescued from Banks Strait (Almost Bass Strait) very lucky.
Also of Note was the two were transferred from the Police Rescue Boat onto VH-VAB, Victoria's Air Ambulance ( Lessons learnt from the failed Bass Strait Rescue)
http://www.pprune.org/pacific-genera...romontory.html

Rescued men 'lucky to survive' ultralight crash in seas off Tasmania's north-east - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Tasmanian police say two men who crashed their ultralight plane into Bass Strait this afternoon were lucky to survive with only minor injuries. The pair crashed into the water in the Waterhouse Island area north of Bridport about 3.00pm and were rescued by police boat and helicopter.
Detective Sergeant Mike Gillies said the men did well to crash into the sea and get away relatively unscathed.
"I believe they made some phone calls to search-and-rescue authorities who gave them some advice," he said.
"They were also in possession of a personal locator beacon that was used to pinpoint their location once they had actually crashed."
Air and marine rescue crews from Tasmania and Victoria were sent to Waterhouse Island after receiving a distress call.
The plane's two occupants were spotted in the water wearing life jackets and were rescued by a police boat just before 5:00pm.
They were then transferred to helicopter and flown to hospital, suffering from hypothermia.
The thruster ultralight took off from Bridport this afternoon and was on its way to Newcastle.
It is understood engine failure caused the plane to ditch into Banks Strait.

That is a well written article for a change and very accurate !

The pilot fitted two lilos into the wings prior in case they ditched. Good thinking that man! Unless they stabbed them it might still be floating. Doubt they towed it in from 40 miles out.

Sharp Airlines were also involved with passengers looking out the windows to help locate the aircraft.

Dornier was on scene as well

Gawd......if it came down near Waterhouse Island and its still afloat then with the tides in that area it'll be half way to New Zealand by now.

.....................ya gotta love the journos.....'engine failure caused the plane to ditch', yep that will do it every time!!!:ugh:

Good to see some fwd planing by the drivers:-)


Wmk2

Good thinking including the lilos but were they tracking direct from Bridport to Flinders? A quick look at Google maps shows you can fly mostly coastal and have just a 10nm crossing via Cape Barren I. At 3000 feet you can be in glide range of a coastline. I'm not an ultralight pilot, just one Thruster flight as a pax, but just wondering on route selection.

I not sure what type they were in but gliding distance would not be a (legal) concern if they fall under CAO 95.55

In spite of the limit of 25 nautical miles mentioned in subparagraph 7.1 (c), an aeroplane to which that limit would otherwise apply may be flown between Tasmania and mainland Australia, in either direction, by a longer route if taking advantage of safer weather conditions.

Good spot Mail-Man.... the RA-Aus changed the operations manual in the last revision to specifically mention Bass (Banks) Strait crossings so as to make them legal.

From memory until the ops manual change, King Island was off limits completely to all RA-Aus aircraft with the exception of those that braved to defy the law makers.

The news reported that this aircraft was 40nm off shore from Tassie, so quite a detour :)

Good video here interviewing the pilot and passenger:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-28/rescued-men-lucky-to-survive-crash-off-tasmanias-north-east/5050482

A Thruster would glide as far as a brick would.

I wonder if they would have made it otherwise.... he said he was heading "north east" to Melbourne. I'll put that one down to the hypothermia ;)

Well, going from Bridport to Melbourne via Flinders Island does start out with a north east track. Perhaps he was correct :)

They had a life raft, however the lilos were in the wings. They must have torn out the lilos fromt the wings, which certainly leads to the question of what happened to the life raft. From memory a life raft won't float when it's not inflated, whereas the lilos were already inflated so it would appear that it sank or was inaccesible. In terms of RA-Aus tehre is no requirement for them to have a life raft on board. The purpose of the lilos was actually to keep the aircraft floating in the event of a ditching, not to survive on.

How apt that we were all discussing that nobody a couple of weeks back that nobody had ever survived a ditching in Bass Strait.

According to the paper--

1/ lilos were not in the wings ( as was suggested to the Pilot before they left Tassie ) they were in the cabin.

2/ lift raft was in the bottom of the cabin, unable to be reached after impact and it sank with the Aircraft.

Lucky fellas.

The newspaper article did paint a different picture to that of what was relayed from Tasmania early on.

Imagine having an outlanding, pulling the lilos out of the storage compartment and inflating them whilst trying to swim in your clothes, good job :D

He had an innovative approach to the ditching - it says that the engine had partially lost power, so he went down to 1 metre above the water to use the ground effect in order to require less power to remain airborne. This gave him 8 minutes of additional flight time.

"Imagine having an outlanding, pulling the lilos out of the storage compartment and inflating them whilst trying to swim in your clothes, good job"

You can say that again. It is hard to do anything except stay afloat,
let alone blow up a Lilo.

I believe they were both wearing lifejackets when found. I read in one of the local rags that they bought the lilos for sleeping on near the plane, not necessarily as life preservers!

Back a few years ago, the single engine route via Flinders to Melbourne was Cape Portland, Flinders, Deal Is, Hogan Is, Seal Is. The Cape Portland Flinders leg is close to land and doesn't have the 50 nm sector over water as WTH - FLI.

Eugene Reid former RAA President taught the pilot to fly. Eugene used to fly a Thruster across the strait moderately regularly and he advised them on the use of lilos in the wings. They bought the lilos but didn't get to fitting them. One might wonder if they had fitted the lilos then the aircraft may have floated and allowed them to get to the life raft. Lots of what-ifs.

The flying in ground effect was an innovative idea that kindof bought them some time.

If I've understood media reports properly, they unfastened seat belts before impact so that they didn't get trapped in the wreck. That seemed to be a strange decision, especially had they been rendered unconscious by unrestrained impact forces.

Sort of negates the purpose of seat belts.

Yes, my thoughts exactly......

Like I said, very lucky fellas