GA Aircraft ditching - Irish Sea - 16th Dec
 

Hearing reports of an aircraft missing in the Irish Sea - Unknown type - Maybe a Heli or a GA.

Fingers crossed for a good outcome.

Please accept my apologies - It's the Irish sea. (Had North sea fixation due to something I am working on at the same time).

I really hope its a false alarm too.

Confirmed ... ditched Aircraft
 

Some additional detail:

Plane ditches in sea off Blackpool coast - Blackpool Today

Fingers crossed for a good outcome.

Mak

It ditches 22 Miles off the coast and the newspaper ends it's article with: "* Did you see the plane having problems over the coast? E-mail your pictures to [email protected] or [email protected]." :ugh::ugh:

Pilot appears to be safe.

"Pilot appears to be safe."

Yes, Thank goodness. Well done to all everyone involved.

There is never a good time for this to open, but it always seems more poignant at Christmas.

Mak, Thanks for the update.

I'll update the title to say GA and perhaps the mods will be kind enough to move this to the GA room?

Heard this unfold on D&D when overflying - Female pilot reporting double engine failure and unable to make destination at that time reported to be 18 miles away. She sound relatively calm and composed under the circumstances, reporting that she was visual with some oil rigs and would circle around them.......and "possibly land on one"!! However I am delighted that she made it, job well done - even if it wasnt the planned outcome!:ok:

Sullenberger's daughter?
 

Ditched successfully in winter in the Irish sea... The girls show us how to do it... :D

Good on you pilot. I won´t even go female/pilot thing (oops, I have).
Well done lass, from a Yorkshire boy.

This thread belongs in Private Flying or Similar but the lady surely is a hero! Wow!

Wow , go girl

Tis always good for a happy ending indeed

IoM Today - Light aircraft ditches in sea enroute to IoM

Also heard on 121.5. She sounded remarkably calm. Glad she's ok. Reg was G-AN (missed the full callsign).

Like the IOM Today news report that mentions the aircraft type - just because an oil rig's involved, suddenly it's a 'Piper Alpha' PA31...

:rolleyes:One-man? That is a VERY small Navajo... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Plane ditches in sea off Blackpool coast
 

News in from 'The Visitor'

PLANE carrying one person has ditched in the sea off the Fylde coast.
The female pilot sent out a May Day to Blackpool's air traffic control after experiencing engine trouble.

The incident happened just after midday.

It was feared the plane could be forced to make a crash-landing at the resort's airport.

It was finally forced to ditch in the Irish Sea 22 miles off the Blackpool coast.

The pilot was due to land at the Isle of Man after travelling from Guernsey.

She was picked up by a rig supply boat and taken to a nearby gas rig.

CHC Scotia have sent out helicopter to bring her back to Blackpool where she will be taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital for a check-up.

A spokesman for Lancashire Police said: "All services are on stand-by after the pilot reported engine trouble."

Sue Kendrick, from Blackpool Airport, said: "We had reports a one-man small aircraft was having engine troubles.

"It has been forced to ditch in the sea and the person on board has been picked up."

Great news, she survived, I hope she makes a speedy recovery and gets airbourne again soon!:ok:

That's good news! Don't suppose you'd last too long with the sea temps as they are at the moment.

Was worried about that myself when i heared the news! Good to hear she did a good job ditching it

I think it was a twin engine ac according to ATC. Two failures??

Reported now as being a Twin Commanche.

Manx.net with IOM Department of Transport Press Release

-j34-

It's cold in that sea in summer let alone this time of year..
How great to see a speedy recovery with no loss of life.:D

Great job, cool:D airmanship.
Not that it is important but since it was "Alpha November" and Manx registered, putting one and one together, the airplane that qualifies mostly is M-ALAN, a PA.30 Twin Comanche....

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/9259/malan.jpg

I was banned for a week for doing that:ok:

Yeah, I think you were banned for doing it when someone died Phill..........

A good ending!
 

Same aircraft and driver came into Blackpool a few years back on one motor!:}

I think there's only one Twin Com on the M register, but can't be sure so there's no guarantee the aircraft in the image above is the incident aircraft, though the registration does almost fit with an earlier post.

It will be interesting to find out if the pilot had an immersion suit or raft - I would have thought an immersion suit to be less likely with a twin than a single, in which case proximity to the standby vessel would be a very significant factor.

It does make one wonder what the common cause of failure was. There is, of course, an obvious explanation, which would not compute with the heroine status of the pilot, so it must have been something more subtle. Fuel icing maybe?

It's a mystery, but give it time and the mystery will solve itself!

Well done pilot :)
 

A job well done to everyone involved!!!

Not trying to be the AAIB on this but it has been reported to the public as a double engine failure, the first thing that sprung to my mind was maybe a fuel selector issue with it having tip tanks (Please excuse i am not 100% sure on the fuel system of a PA30 ). Fuel icing may have been the issue but would it not of shown earlier in the flight. A friend of mine down south who has a PA30 (with out tip-tanks) who i contacted to make sure they werent involved came out with when i mentioned it was reportedly a double engine failure that it may of had ice blocking the tank vents which he said can be common on this type.

At least the pilot lives to fly another day and tell the tale.

Once again thumbs up to all that assisted the speedy recovery!!!!:ok:

Karl

karl, you said it yourself. Don't be AAIB. Don't speculate. You have NO idea what happened, and if you don't even know the systems of the aircraft don't try to be clever and quote what some bloke down the pub said that someone had said to him in the queue at the bookies...

A quote from an owner of a similar aircraft who may have significant experience of the type hardly falls into that category!

Whatever the cause, the ditching sounds to me like a hugely impressive bit of airmanship and piloting skills. Has the aircraft been recovered? I suspect perhaps not!!

Aircraft Recovery
 

I don't expect recovery to be a major problem. With those empty tanks I'm sure the aircraft will float for quite some time :oh:

JAR.....naughty, naughty...!!! One huge bit of luck in her favour was the weather conditions at the time, with the big high over the UK little wind and therfore flat sea for the past few days.........a differant out come in 30kt wind and 3 metre sea!!!!

I suspect she was wearing an immersion suit - if so, very good planning.

When I did my HUET course, I was told that unprotected survival time in UK latitudes in summer was about 2 hours, in winter about 20 minutes (if you're lucky).

Rumour on another forum says no survival gear being worn

I hope she reads PPRUNE and will care to tell her full story here.

One hell of a woman!

Lets wait for the AAIB to produce some findings. I suspect they might not find too much wrong with the aircraft, or too much 100LL remaining in it.

Dunno if theyll find anything wrong with the aircraft or not - it rather depends whether they've got scuba gear or not... :rolleyes:

And that's the second time you've made a scurrilous, baseless accusation. Would you want people to gloat and cast aspersions over any incident in which you are involved in the same way?

Just watched a report on the local news here, sorry I can't remember the ladies name but her hubby Alan Burrows should be known to a lot of you. Alan was interviewed with her. I met him a few years ago at OBA in Florida while I was hour building pre-RAF discharge. She was wearing a dry suit and got into the dinghy before rescue and seemed very calm about the whole thing. Whatever the cause, she was well prepared for disaster and obviously ditched well and got out safely/well kitted. :ok: