G/A Light Aircraft ditches off Leighton Beach, WA
 

Ch 9 reporting that a light aircraft has ditched just offshore at Leighton Beach, WA. at approx 1710 WST this arvo.
Leighton Beach approx 1nm N of Fremantle Harbour.

Blurred image shows aircraft is about 20 m or so offshore and is fully submerged.
Female pilot and young male pax - (Mother & Son?) - swam to shore and are reported as 'being OK'. Seas look to be 'calm'.

Ch reporter said acft was a 'Cessna Birddog'.....looks low wing to me - thru blurred water image - it will all come out - eventually.
The fact that it did not seem to have 'flipped' might suggest a retractable u/c..??
WA Police and 'Ambos' in attendance...More to follow I would imagine.

That is all.....

It's a Piper Archer VH-FEY and the pilot is the owner. She has a CPL, is very capable and handled the ditching really well.

Two bits of excitement in one day! It is not every day you get to see a full solar eclipse, and safely ditch your aircraft, and it looks good they came out of it unscathed.

A wag would say they could have done a bit less family bonding, or used another method to save on landing fees, but....

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-...hton/102249554

"Ms Yeats said she was speaking to her son as the plane came down, telling him, "mate, we've just had engine failure, we're going to have to land on the beach".

"He was like 'for real, are you for real?'. I said, 'hopefully this is the most exciting thing that's going to happen in your life and we're going to be okay.'"

"But the best part is, people were rescued and they all came out safe and that's the main thing."

That’s about the time of the eclipse, no? Maybe the engine went into “auto rough” as it sensed impending darkness…. A common feature of single engined aircraft at night, I’m led to believe.

Doesn't this belong under Accidents and Close Calls?

No, she'd watched the eclipse then flown back from Exmouth so that's a few hours difference

Video in Thirsty's link shows a good job of landing. Interesting to see the prop stopped horizontally - probably luck, but well done and good presence of mind if intended.

Comment re [lack of] fuel leakage seemed fairly definite? Hopefully that's not related to the fundamental issue (and for the avoidance of doubt, this comment is not intended to be sarcastic, nor a pointed barb).

FP.

Don't you need an IFR rating to fly under an eclipse? What about a partial eclipse?

only if its IMC…

The ditching was really well done, almost looks like it aqua planed for a short while before biteing in. The prop can be seen slowing to a stop in the last few seconds, so pure luck it went horizontal.

As for cause, they said they had full fuel at the start. Many things can go wrong with the fuel system, which seems the likely area to focus on as the prop was rotating until low speed suggesting oil or a catastrophic mechanical failure unlikely.

Not if it is after first light and before last light.

In the 1976 eclipse we were holding on Eildon (center of the band) at 120. High enough to see the shadow coming and during it we could see the sunlit areas to the north and south. On IFR but that was due to +4 octas to and from EN.

Despite extreme propaganda re "no filters will save your vision" all of us in the Baron had degrees in hard science/engineering and CIG No 13 welding filters were fine.

People call it barefooting.

Aeroplanes call it baretyring. :E

It looked textbook from the shore. Keeping the nose high for so long prevented a higher speed nose-over as the main gear dug in. Hope nobody woke up too sore this morning.

She definitely didn’t land at YEXM, I spoke to everyone who arrived prior to the eclipse. She was either at Yardie Homestead, Coral Bay or maybe she never landed 😉 🥄🥘

Yes you are right, she didn't get all the way to Exmouth, I now know she only went as far as Carnarvon.

Lazy Journalism..
 

If she had landed at an Exmouth area airstrip, Watched the eclipse alongside the aircraft and then departed immediately for home, say1145, she would have needed jet type speeds to ditch near Perth about 5 hours later....In photos of the pilot and aircraft, with rego, it is clearly an Archer II, not a Cessna Bird Dog.
I shakes me weary old head.

Certainly impressive and well done!! I thought she came in very fast, no flaps, resulting in a very sudden stop and it'd be interesting to know why she chose to do that. Maybe she thought skiing in the low/no waves might be a better outcome??

A followup story, including a lengthy interview shows a level headed pilot, doing what she had been trained to do, and doing it well. Listen to the interview.
Plane being towed out of the drink via a winch.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-...each/102250564

The original story at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-...hton/102249554 now has had a bit more material and photos added.

All the above speculation in the preceding posts (mostly incorrect) will be answered. For once, no sensationalising by the ABC media - just a well reported story.

Video of the actual landing, including the impact shown in the original story. The picture of the plane as it is brought to the beach in the second story.

The interview of the pilot in the second story. Note comments of a Qantas pilot who witnessed the landing.

No worries, a bit of polish, buffing up and drying out in the sun and VH-FEY will be good to fly again... [NOT]

Wondering what the cause was? No ATSB investigation?

Flapless, possibly, but "very fast"? No. Check out the angle of attack before touchdown. Much slower and she would have stalled. And in all probability, they were slightly downwind, increasing the groundspeed. She wasn't going "fast". "Very" sudden stop? No, looks like she skied on the wheels/spats for some distance, slowing down, before the mains dug in. A great effort, IMO.

I thought the whole idea of ditching was to stall it on… similar to a short field landing. Minimise the groundspeed at touchdown.

The underwater video shows the flaps up. It certainly looked like a fast touchdown, but no injuries on this occasion.

I've seen other vids of ditching pipers and mostly they 'splat' onto the water stopping where they hit. This ditching was very good, light touch so it skiid to a stop rather than flip.

Was there much of a fuel slick on the water after impact?

Looking at the video, I was impressed with the stalled corkscrew dive and recovery done by the sea bird. Caution, wake turbulence? LOL.

Very unlikely unless the tanks were ruptured.

But would full fuel cover the flight from where she took off to Jandakot?

I remember some years back a twin forced landing into a cane paddock just short of CNS. Female pilot praised for textbook landing, front page of cairns post etc etc.. 8 months later page 10 - investigation revealed she had run out of petrol ........
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Maybe she could have landed on the Northern Highway and topped it up at the BP roadhouse on the way down. Did you actually listen to the interview - covered.

Covered in the article audio interview.

No I didn't listen to any interview.

Agree with this.
To those who question the lack of flaps for landing, consider:
At 1500ft if your only engine quits in a.typical draggy old airframe, you have about 90 seconds to set up the landing. Adding flap too early will reduce that time. On some types flap requires considerable nose down pitch to maintain safe speed - not desirable.
In that 90 seconds you will probably try a quick troubleshoot first - carb heat, boost pumps etc. Then pick the landing area, then put out a mayday call.
Final memory actions prior to impact usually include switching off all electrics.
On many of these Pipers the flaps are electrically powered.

The lady dun gooood.

Someone doesn’t know their Pipers very well………

A Cherokee with electric flaps? That’d be a first.

No injuries, plane is virtually intact.
I don’t see how flaps could have made the outcome any better.

As she has done a fait bit of media now I feel I can say a bit more about this.
For all the people with opinions about ditching, I was Michelle's CPL instructor, I learned to fly on an island where there was a lot of over water flying and we had ditching drlls drummed into us over and over. I was able to pass that knowledge on to her and she put it into action and it worked.
The main thing is to maintain control, for that you need airspeed, and to land as flat as you can along the swell and get the door open before you reach the water. She did exactly that and it worked. Flaps not relevant.
She owned that aeroplane, knew it inside out and did her hour building in it including adventures into remote areas.. She keeps meticulous fuel logs. So what happened? Maybe we'll never know, but it's been disappointing to see how many on social media have had said that being female is a contributing factor in "running out of fuel", I would dare any of them to say it to her face! Or mine!

Meanwhile here is an interesting article on ditching by Paul Bertorelli
EQUIPPED TO SURVIVE (tm) - Ditching Myths Torpedoed!

My (albeit brief) review of ostensibly authoritative guidance material indicates that FULL flaps are NOT recommended when ditching in a low wing aircraft, unless the POH/AFM specifically says full flaps should be used. The consensus seems to be “no more than intermediate flaps” (unless the POH/AFM etc).

(Well done the PIC and well done Clare Prop!)

To all who flamed me, thanks for setting me straight - I really thought later model Piper singles had regressed to electric flaps. Pleased to now know they didn’t
However, in my defence, I did not categorically state that this particular Piper had electric flaps (RTFT) so while I could go back & edit out my ‘mistake’, I won’t, because you/we like to prove others wrong sometimes.

(Slight thread drift: You’re flying a retrac single with a three-bladed prop. You have an engine failure and are forced to ditch, but have a few minutes to prepare after the HSM. Which is safer when you hit the water: (1) Prop windmilling. (2) Prop stopped with one blade pointing straight up. (3) Prop stopped with one blade pointing straight down. Assume you can engage the starter to rotate the prop if you need to. I’d opt for 2 if I had the time and choice.)

If the prop is windmilling you have no control over where it might stop. In this case it stopped due to the reduced airspeed due to the raised nose as she flared and the rapid deceleration as they touched the water. If the prop has stopped then the engine has seized or your crankshaft has broken. So starter is irrelevant.

As I have advised her and all my other students, once you are committed to a forced landing the aeroplane belongs to the insurance company. No point trying to save a prop. I'm not sure in her case if it was developing any power, but I tell people to shut the engine down as a restart can increase the liklihood of a loss of control, we actually demonstrate this in stall and PFL training by applying full power from idle to an aircraft with full flap and trimmed for the glide.

I don’t want to start an argument with you, Clare, as you’re vastly more experienced than I am. But you can stop a windmilling prop in the air (if you have time). Presumably you’ve been through an ‘air start’ exercise many times, which exercise involves stopping the prop from windmilling first? And my scenario was about reducing the probabilities of the aircraft flipping on ditching, not about ‘saving the prop’.

The Piper Archer is a single engine aeroplane with a fixed pitch propeller...
Not quite the same as doing feathering drills in a twin.
Even if there was a variable pitch prop in a single in the event of a loss of oil pressure a spring will take it to full fine pitch.
So no,I haven't practised "air starts" in a single engine fixed pitch aircraft so please share your experience.