And I wonder if it's harder for a woman than a man, given women tend to be smaller and relatively weaker in the shoulders? I did a lot of dinghy racing in the past, which of course means I did a lot of climbing into dinghies from the water and even with a dinghy with only 4" or so of freeboard it was hard, even when I was slim and very fit.

But I suspect the liferaft would at least be much easier to spot from the air than a person in the water, and if that is the case hanging onto it is a probably good thing so long as sea conditions allow.

I'm almost certain the immersion saved MLB's life - the sea is very cold at present and survival time is measure in a handful of minutes at best. MLB's hubby is to be commended for insisting on it. Hope she never needs to use it in earnest again!

There is so much utter b:mad:ks on Pprune, but once in a while an utter gem comes along and the post from MLB is one of them.

MLB,

As the proud owner of twin GMAIK which used to live at Manx, congratulations and indeed what good advice from your husband!

We hope to hear al the details of the ditching itself, if you can being yourself to reliving these and sharing them


vanHorck

Mystery solved and what can I say but "Bravo" and very well done.

Edited thread title
 

I have taken the liberty of editing the thread title to reflect the successful outcome of the episode.

Good job, glad you're safe ManxLadybird! :ok:

And thanks for sharing your experience on here.

SD

Timothy said:It is difficult to see how any CSU failure could cause the manifold pressure on an engine with the throttle well open to drop to 17". Surely that could only be caused by an induction blockage?

It looks like both engines had low MP.
Anyone got any idea what could cause this?
and I would also be interested to know if the plane had just been in for maintenance.

Eddieheli

Eddie, could you please explain to me how you consider that low MP can cause an uncontrollable prop overspeed?

MLB
 

what a fantastic outcome for you and your family.
I just hope that if anything a fraction as risky as your problem, ever happend to me ,that I react with your courage and calmness.
It probably didn't feel all that calm at the time:)
A lady flight instructor who flies from our strip recently had a canopy smashed,possibly bird impact but not known.
She was covered in blood and could only see properly from one eye,but managed to land in a field unhurt and aircraft undamaged apart from what happened in the air.
Perhaps ladies are better at it than us chaps when the chips are down?;)
Lister

Liferaft not much good unless you can get into it
 

MLB did very well and her husband likely saved her life by insisting on her wearing an immersion suit, especially when she was unable to board the liferaft.

Without the immersion suit she may not have remained able to hold onto the liferaft until rescue, although in this case her rescuers were exceedingly prompt:ok:

To those flying overwater: Does your liferaft have effective boarding steps?

would sort of suggest a low MP problem developed on both engines and an overspeed on one.

It would seem to suggest a general induction problem (snow packing, induction ice???) as both engines appear to have been affected. Is there a reasonable CSU failure mode that could have the same root cause?

--------
I am not aware of an engine failure mode that results in less than atmospheric MP other than 'induction blockage' or a 'stuck' throttle cable (indirectly causing an induction blockage)

Anyone who has seen the construction of a CSU will know that low MP cannot cause a prop overspeed. The only thing that can cause a prop overspeed is a failure of both governors within the CSU.

As I read her post, MLB was between cloud layers and not in icing conditions. She talks about completely different symptoms for each engine failure. It is possible that the second failure was caused by intake icing descending through cloud layers, but I won't bet much on that - MLB was there - she could probably tell you whether it was likely given the conditions at the time.

As for the first engine failure, my money is on some mechanical failure within the CSU.

induction air filter icing
 

Will cause a low MP indication, having the same effect at closing the throttle.
Selecting alternate air would provide unobstructed air supply to the engine restoring power. No info is this is catered for on this aircraft.

MLB, what have you written in your logbook for the landing point? I have an entry in mine from years ago that says take off point Belize International and landing point 'A Swamp... Ouch'.

I guess her log book may be a little damp and out of reach.

As a flying diver,( or a diving flier), I can tell you that there is little difference in the sea temperature in that area between winter and summer. You will chill through very quickly any time of the year without protective clothing. Heat is leeched from the body 20 times faster in water than air. The average temperature recorded on dives is only 7Celcius.

Congratulations to MLB for a successful outcome to a double emergency,and to the rescue crews for their prompt reaction.
I don`t know what the Comanche POH , but it may well be worth thinking about that in other larger pistons ,in extremely cold weather,one should cycle the props several times,maybe every 45min-1hr,to circulate fresher ,warm oil through the governors,as the viscosity would /could change ,leading to poor/ degraded control,especially in a long constant power cruise.
It is only a thought ,and no way reflects the events .

Found a URL for surface temperatures, and whilst I agree the deeper water won't vary much at all, the surface seems to by up to 10C. But it took a lot of time & swearing to get that far with the site - it seems very slow.

Coastal Observatory, Liverpool Bay, Irish Sea (UK) | Satellite

But even if the water was at it's warmest, MLB should keep wearing her immersion suite.

I agree. However, the evidence is at the bottom of the sea and the AAIB are unlikely to recover it.

UV

Interesting read from MLB, well done.

I "ditched" 50 times in the summer - but I had floats on :)

Regarding a double engine failure in a Multi, purely for interest sake - One way which could cause a DEF on many types is to crossfeed only one engine and forget about it. If you do this, both engines feed off one tank, BUT the fuel return of the crossfed engine goes back into the tank on the side of that engine. The result is that you have a huge fuel flow from one tank (~whatever, say 30 gals/hr) with the other tank starting to fill up from the fuel retun. When full of course the excess fuel will be dumped overboard. So eventually both engines stop - as the tank they are running off is empty, but you still have full fuel in the other wing...

This is the second time a Comanche has ditched near to these rigs:

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...pdf_500979.pdf

The last one was G-ASRH in 2001.