Dear SDB73,

I think you'll be forced to yield.
Posters unable to stop contributing their unfailingly superior knowledge will eventually dominate any subject.

mike hallam
(not a pseudonym)

I have seen a few studies on ditchings - albiet mostly conducted in the US. These suggest that survival rates are much higher than you might anticipate. For example in a ten year period based on just over 200 reports the survival rate was a little over 90%.

However as with any stats. a proper understanding can only follow from the ability to correctly interpret the data. There are many obvious factors which will impact on surviving a ditching; in particular in and around the UK the temperature of the water and the speed with which the crew are recovered is critical. Needless to say so is the ability to exit the aircraft as the evidence indicates most GA types sink quickly. The fitness, size and weight of the crew are factors and in this case so is the design of the aircraft.

Never the less I think it is safe to conclude the risk of an engine failure followed by a ditching that results in loss of life is an very rare occurence so in terms of am I likely to die in that way, the answer is you are not.

Categorically without reference to this accident, the vast majority of accidents are down to human failure in some way. Theoretically a twin is always safer than a single, but the theory is substantially eroded because of the high rate at which pilots mismanage twin aircraft - be it running out of fuel because they dont fully understand the more complicated fuel systems on some twins to botched EFATOs.

Once again this makes any comparison meaningless unless the reader has a propoer understanding of the factors involved.

Ask the question how safe is flying (over water, at night, in IMC or whatever permutation you wish) and the answer should be caveated with how current and well trained is the pilot, how careful has the pilot been with regards to the maintenance of his aircraft and what precautions has he taken to stack the odds in his favour? If the answers are all weighted in the pilots favour then inevitably you will be much safer in a twin than a single, but in both instance the risk is so small that some would argue it hardly warrants concern - you would do far better eliminating other risks in your life such as having a annual screen for cancer - very few of us do but statistically there is a far greater chance that will kill you.

In reality it seems to me most peoples perception of risk when it comes to flying (and lots of other things) is qualitative, or should I say emotional. We think about the risk of a flight over water, but we dont think about the risk of cancer or hypertension being good examples. If we did and applied the same criteria I have little doubt we would all have far more regular health screens and we would all approach flying (never mind flying over water) in a different way. In reality we often debate the risk of flying over water in a single but we never ask why we dont have annual health checks.

In any system where a function is dual-redundant, and the redundancy has no resulting downside, it is obviously true that the probability of a failure of the whole system is reduced.

So a twin should be less likely to go down per airborne hour than a single.

On top of that most ME failures of an engine that happen during cruise go unreported and will never appear in any stats, which results in ME forced landings to be over-represented, again per airborne hour.

Unfortunately reality interferes with this, and the key is the "no resulting downside" bit.

And there are several downsides:

- EFATO scenarios require a high degree of pilot currency

- More complex fuel systems; in some cases you can be drawing fuel from one tank while the gauge(s) show the contents of a different tank

- Higher operating cost, resulting in reduced pilot currency

- Higher operating cost, resulting in less picky attitudes to maintenance because you carry a spare engine (you can tell I like to avoid controversy :E )

- Most twins are > 1999kg so there is a big incentive to file "VFR" to avoid the IFR route charges (this is an awfully persistent trend in ME CFITs)

- Most twin types have been out of production for decades, and their age makes maintenance to any particular standard more expensive

One might also think twins fly more hazardous missions, which will further skew the stats against them. I am not sure whether this is true today; the pilots who I know who fly what I call light twins do not fly in conditions any more hazardous than SE pilots I know of similar experience. There are also plenty of deiced singles flying around, which equipment-for-equipment are a match for any light twin. 2 engines do not alone deliver any specific capability w.r.t. weather.

Those who don't like my posts don't have to read them. Contrary to popular belief, there is no requirement to be on the internet to correct every perceived instance of somebody having written something one disagrees with :)

Hi Peter,

Is this another conclusion?

I do not share this login. Why do you ask?

And I think we can all see you don't have the stats you mentioned. So parking the (now answered) question as to whether you have the stats, I'll move on, in the hope that this brief exchange has helped at least some people avoid perpetuating your misinformation.

mikehallam,
You're probably right, but I'm one of life's perpetual optimists!! :)

Fuji
Thank god I'm not on my own!! Wise words .. however ..

Slight pedantry, but I think it's important.. I don't think that is necessarily the case. Statistics are incredibly easy to misinterpret, to which you've alluded. There are too many factors to make that statement. I think the statement you are taking a little out of context is "PILOTS don't very often die in that way". That doesn't mean YOU aren't likely to die that way. By extremely careful analysis of the stats, you MIGHT find that the majority of deaths have been a certain age range, PiC hours, or engine life span, or specific route, etc, etc, etc. If you personally fall into the high risk area, then you are possibly WAY more likely to die than "the rest". Similarly, you might fall into the low risk category and be almost inconceivably likely to die that way.

This is the important point of threads like this. I am extremely greatful for them, as they enable me to form a more rich picture of the risks, and how to mitigate them. GoldenEaglePilot puts this perfectly. Control the risks you can control, and decide whether you're willing to expose yourself to the risks you can't.

But you can only make that judgement based on a rich understanding of what can / does go wrong, and the successful / unsuccessful ways of dealing with them.

"The vast majority of accidents are down to human failure".

This is one we all hear a lot. Instinctively I would guess this is true, but I haven't seen any statistics to prove this. Is this something that someone spouted on a forum one day and we all took as being gospell? I genuinely don't know either way, so can't comment - and so wouldn't comment. I'd love to know for sure though.

Again, a very wise observation, and it might be that (to use statistitian speak) the sample is too small to draw any conclusions on whatsoever. So in which case, one would have to make up their own mind about what they GUESS, based on the vast web of knowledge and understanding that fills our minds when we immerse ourselves in a topic, like flying.

really? you sure? :)

You are absolutely right, though, that most people's (probably all peoples to some extent) assessment of risk is more emotional rather than logical.

We also tend to perceive a risk as smaller the more we've taken it. First time you bungie jump or parachute jump, or take off, or run down the stairs, etc, etc we perceive the risk as lower. That's part of how our subconscious works, and is the same mechanism which drives out "instincts", as we consider past events as proof of what's likely to come.

I think this mechanism tends to lead some types of people to make sweeping statements, as they apply their historic personal experience to situations about which they do not have all the facts.. unable to accept that there could be circumstances which completely and totally change their viewpoint. These people tend to gravitate towards forums in my (vast) experience! :)

IO540

I want to make something clear.

Apart from ...

... which I don't see how you could support with stats, (as they're unreported!)...

I thought your last post was you at your best. It was considered, informative, had some interesting counterintuitive points made in it, and was on the whole factual or stated clearly as opinion.

I have read many of your posts of the years, some of which have been incredibly interesting and helpful - as is your website - and for this I have thanked you personally (PM) in the past as well as on here.

My initial response to you was not because I "didn't like your post(s)", it was merely a question as to whether you could provide the stats you stated, as a member of this community who would like to know the truth.

Since then, you avoided answering that question, and then started getting shirty with me, with bold text berating me for not putting enough effort into the thread.

Please be clear, that my concern is not whether I like / dislike you or your posts, my concern is that I have seen too many people believe statements like yours on forums and then go off and waste a load of money or make other poor decisions. In this case, those decisions could cost someone their / their loved ones life, so I just felt it important to seek clarity.

Now that Fuji Abound has brought some sense back into the topic (the contents of which I entirely agree with) maybe I can add something to the discussion. I was privi to this very sad accident as I was listening to my radio at the time (as I very often do) and can recollect the following circumstances. Guernsey ATC had been calling the (unknown) but thought it was RG for some time as it had entered the CI Zone without calling and was heading in a SW direction squarking 7600. This would seem to rule out electrical failure. It was asking it to perform various turns and change squark if reading. Nothing happened so they asked a PA28 with instructor on board which was in the circuit in Guernsey to go and have a look. RG was about 23 nm nw of Guernsey and therefore about 20 nm west of Alderney (its destination). In the time it took the local aircraft to reach the last known position (about 12 mins) RG had disappeared from the radar. The Russian ship was doing a 180 to return to the ditching site so this pinpointed the accident site. It was at this time that the emergency services ramped up.The rib from the freighter was first on scene to rescue within about 20 minutes (I think) from ditching.The English Channel at this time if the year is just past its peak warmth. It is odd why the ditching had to take place. The visibilty was ok over the channel. I have my own thoughts but will keep them to myself.

As regards flying over water it is a management of risks as per Fuji Abound. I have been flying a SEP for the last 42 years out of Guernsey. Our initial training is done about 20 nm south over the Roche Douvres Lighthouse so well outside gliding distance of anywhere, we wear lifejackets when in the circuit as we are over the water and in all honesty the local fields are too small to make a successful forced landing so the water is more then likely the best option anyway. I will not fly at night over water unless I have too (I know the engine does'nt know its dark but I do).We all carry dingies (which are serviced regularly) and wear life jackets at all times. We all (most) have PLB'S.

I think there is a church service in Alderney tomorrow for Ian so maybe you will all show some respect in your posts please.

My comment with regards to cancer was slightly tongue in cheek as you gathered but it does raise another useful illustrative point. In fact the current risk of dieing from cancer during your life time if you are a male is 1:4 - slightly better odds for a female. The life time risk is therefore high. We spend very little of our lifetime flying a single over the water and certainly not a life time. So is the average GA pilot more likely to die of cancer or from ditching - without doubt far more likely to die of cancer. If he spent his lifetime flying over water, you would arrive at a different conclusion.

With regards to most accidents being caused by the pilot or avoidably poor maintenance I dont think we need the stats to support the premise. If you read the reports it is apparent just how many pilots are candid enough to admit the accident was their fault - by extrapolation one suspects that this would be equally true of those that sadly kill themselves.

However I do agree that there are many myths that should be challenged.

There is much written that cannot be supported in just about every walk of life. I certainly dont have all the answers but have taken a little interest over the years in the stats that are published and are relevant to the things that interest me as a useful basis for hopefully adding some susbstance to a debate.

in Europe the data and analysis is incomplete at best. In the US there are a number of detail analysis based on the ASF database. These consistently show pilot error such as loss of control in landing/takeoff, low flying, LOC enroute, stall/spin, VFR into IMC, overloading, trying to achieve performance beyond book spec (too sort, to heavy, to far for the fuel), etc. There is no doubt that pilot error (as implicitly defined by the prior list) is the overwhelming cause of accidents.

some of these pilot errors may have been prompted by a mechanical problem. The best example is a ME aircraft crashing as the result of loosing one engine. flown correctly (assuming loaded per POH) this should not result in a crash, but sometimes it does and in this case it often gets classed as pilot error.

Some very good posts, especially by goldeneaglepilot, SDB73 and Fuji.

I cannot see the logic expressed in this thread of 2 door cockpit aircraft (TB20/C150/C172 etc) versus 1 door aircraft (Beech V35, Beech33, PA28 Series and PA44 etc) :confused:

Is the consensus that TB20/C172/C182/C210/PA28 are dangerous because they have no doors for passengers seated in row 2 or 3 ? If so, maybe time to consider the Piper Saratoga ;) , Piper Lance, Beech A36, Piper Seneca and Beech 58

I have first hand experience of a PA32R ditching through mechanical failure and it was not pleasant. 1 door was suffice for me. It was jammed open at approx 300ft with full harmess seatbelt pulled up another notch prior to splashdown across the swell.

Life Jackets were not being worn but were in the back of the aircraft, because one always think that it will never happen to them :eek: I was into the back of the aircraft to recover lifejacket and out of the aircraft in what seemed like 30 seconds as self preservation kicks in fast.

I have been across many times since in SEP but I am now more confident in the C310/C421 (both with 1 door/airstair) and escape panel.

Couldn't agree more with Fuji's post.

I also think your stat of 1:4 men dieing of Cancer is - as you've deduced - as close as uncontravertible evidence that your previous statement was probably completley accurate!

Also, I share your feelings about pilot induced accidents.

I'm pleased, however, that you haven't taken my post personally, and clearly understood the sentiment.

Nothing to do with the initial subject of this thread but it is my opinion that many people fly over water under the 'it won't happen to me' philosophy. Familiarity breeds contemp and I would ask anyone who flies regularly around the Channel Islands if they still simply tie a life jacket around their middle as a sort of token gesture?

Slight thread drift I know, but this topic has enlarged, therefore:-

I am a member of The American Bonanza Society, a community who has at its heart the promotion of Beechcraft aircraft, the continuance of the Beech fleet, and most importantly, safety through communication.

web site American Bonanza Society, worth a peek. The crux however, is the BPPP. It is a pilot proficiency programme which offers type specific training for people new to the fleet, i.e you buy a Baron, it can come with 10 or xxx hours BPPP.

You buy a Bonanza, it again can come with BPPP. Yes, it is run in the States only, BUT, it is the premise and concept that is bold. It is also is run with superbly qualified instructors and individuals who wish to impart training and knowledge, specific to type. These are complex aircraft, and the recognition that they are, is the first step. Too many people buy an aeroplane, think they can get in and fly, and fail totally to not only understand the issues surrounding the complexity, but how to get the thing in the air or back on the ground, safely. Incidents such as this tragic event, again bring to the fore the discussion of safety. No amount of training/experience/relevence can be too much. IMHO.

I helped with a few salvages over the years, and this involved occasional swims into the cabins of upside down submerged floatplanes. It is very disorienting in there! Ever since, I wear either a life jacket, or floater suit (temperature dependent) while flying at all, over water.

I fly over water a lot, though lakes, so not too far from shore generally. I land on the water a lot. Lots of times, even in the amphibian, an attempt to land on the water would result in a crash (too rough). I'm somewhat afraid of ditching a fixed gear landplane, or any aircraft in rough water. I'm very afraid of being not detectable out there after the plane sinks, and drowning.

In addition to the life jacket, my cell phone is clipped to the life jacket in a water proof bag (available for music players), and I always have a whistle, and some form of signal light. It's the least I can do to prevent being someone's bad statistic.

Pilot DAR, I would have an EPIRB clipped to me as well as the mobile phone if I was doing what you are doing.

One or two percent of pilots die in aircraft accidents?
How many licenced active pilots are there in the UK? (genuine question)
20,000? (pure speculation) so 200 or 400 pilots a year get killed in aeroplanes? I think not. What about all this talk one hears of one fatality per 100,000 hours etc? Have all these dead people clocked up a hundred thousand hours before drawing the short straw?

apologies if people have already written about this - is there a ditching course that one can attend in the UK that anybody knows of?

I did a maritime survival course. The same stuff they run on weekdays for oil rig crews was run by volunteers from a diving school on Saturdays. Same theory, same pool, same everything. Except we wore our dive suits instead of drysuits.

It included dunker training in a mock helicopter. The feeling of desorientation is very sobering.

Unfortunately it's in Dutch only:
Indoor | Get Wet Maritiem

You might be lucky and find the same concept in the UK. Otherwise you'll need to look for the professional courses, but they won't be cheap.

many thanks

Aviation Safety Training | Oxford Aviation Academy - OAA.com

and scroll down.

Search "Underwater Escape Training - Andark"for an option near Hamble river, Hampshire, UK.


Training such as this is not 'tick-box'. The situations experienced and skills learned radically change behaviours and likely outcomes in a real post-ditching survival situation.

I tried to make some kind of reply to this yesterday, but I don't think I put my point over very well. I'm going to try again, because I think it's actually quite important.

I remember a similar argument a while ago on a different forum, where some petrolheads were complaining that 3000 road deaths a year were nothing in comparison with 30,000 deaths per year due to pneumonia, and therefore restricting their right to drive like morons was a disproportionate infringement of their civil liberties. However, the truth of the matter is that the 'typical' patient who dies of pneumonia is probably an elderly person who has already had a stroke and who swallows their food the wrong way, or who has had a fall and broken some ribs and can't cough to clear their lungs. They tend to be very frail, and even if you hit them with strong antibiotics and get them over their pneumonia, they tend to die of something else (another stroke, a pulmonary embolism) a few weeks or months down the line. I'm not arguing for a moment that older people aren't valuable, or that they don't deserve good care. Simply that we will all get to a point where our time has come, and at which medical treatment becomes at best a losing battle.

People tend to get cancer a little younger and whilst they're still relatively fit, but it's still, by and large, a disease that strikes people when they're older:

Cancer mortality by age - UK statistics : Cancer Research UK

In contrast, when relatively young people meet violent and unexpected deaths through transport accidents, the loss is, if not far greater, then at least far less inevitable. We all know that we're going to die but we hope that it will be at a good age, after we've gotten to know our grandkids - who will remember us fondly. We don't like to imagine ourselves being scraped off the ground, with the police trying to match limbs to torsos and our dependants wrangling with insurance companies whilst trying to grieve. All deaths are not the same.

But perhaps more to the point, non-smokers don't have a huge degree of control over how likely they are to get cancer - there are a few very specific types of cancer such as cervical cancer that it's worth screening for - for most types it's a bad idea. A healthy diet is a good idea, and so is going to see your doctor for unexplained weight loss, blood in your stool, or worrying moles.

Again, I'm not arguing that old people are worthless. But as an individual, and assuming that you enjoy life, would you rather die at 40 or 80? Unless your answer is that you wouldn't mind either way, it makes sense to concentrate on avoiding the most immediate causes of death.

Another way of looking at it would be to think about how much different diseases shorten your life on average. A disease that kills an 85 year old probably didn't shave more than a few months or years off their life; if you plow an aircraft into the ground or sea aged 40, you might cut your life expectancy by 45 -50 years.

About 1-2% of us will die in aircraft accidents. Excepting medical emergencies, private pilots who die through accidents will almost always be fit (otherwise they wouldn't be flying) and will have a lot to look forward to in life. And whilst fate can throw anybody a curve-ball, I like to think that I have a reasonably high degree of control over whether or not I die in an aircraft accident - which is not the case for cancer.

That's a very good post.

I would however add that a lot of cancer screening is actively discouraged by the NHS not because it doesn't work but because either (a) the cost-benefit argument does not meet NHS criteria for what a life is worth in their books (ex: the cost of £1000-a-time MRIs or biopsies for prostate cancer), or (b) there is no effective treatment anyway.

As regards ditching, my own take on it is that if you are not out of the cockpit, standing on the wing, with the life raft pack outside the cockpit and the activation cord in your hand, before the plane sinks, then you have messed up. That is what one must focus on achieving immediately upon ditching, plus grabbing the ELT (I have 2) and the emergency bag on the way out. I brief passengers accordingly, and twice.

Some people might think the raft is self inflating, or that it is OK to jump in and swim after it and climb in, etc.

I read somewhere that 15% of people die accidentally, so if 1-2% of pilots die in aircraft accidents, what does that tell us? It probably tells us that we spend far too little time flying :)

ABGB, my brain is too small and I've become distracted by the whole age argument; is the point that you are making, related to the age (79 years old) of the pilot who ditched their aircraft off Guernsey due to an electrical failure?

It tells me that is a load of bollox.
One or two per cent of pilots die in aircraft accidents?
How many licenced active pilots in the UK? (genuine question) 20,000?
pure speculation. So 200 to 400 pilots get killed every year? I think not.
What about all this talk one hears of one fatality per hundred thousand hours etc? Did all these dead pilots have that many hours before they perished?

FBM,

It is not that 1-2% die EACH year. It is 1-2% die over time. So if you have 20,000 active pilots and they each fly for 10 years on average, then 20 to 40 will die per year. All of those numbers seem broadly consistent with the UK experience. The quoted percentage is certainly not out by an order of magnitude.

Statistics... A flexible friend.

Perhaps I am unlucky, but in my non-military and non-testing experience, considering friends or acquaintances (let's say, people I knew and who knew me well enough to stop and say hello): seven fatalities in twenty years. In most military flying and most testing, the numbers are higher, but the degree of self-selection is greater too. I'd rather not think on that for too long, especially in civil testing.

mm flynn's numbers are within an order of magnitude, I reckon. Comfortably.

Ah,that explains it. They were mere ten thousand hour pilots...;)

(It's OK I can see what you are saying now.)

Like!

Though there's a flaw there, too. If your average pilot lives 700,000 hours, and is flying for 7000 of them (known overguesstimate), we would expect only 0.15% of pilots to die flying, if it were as safe as life is on average.

To answer a few points:

No, I certainly wasn't alluding to the age of the pilot in question. I was making a more general point that aviation is dangerous, and it's worthwhile taking safety seriously. It always seems slightly unseemly when somebody dies - to be simultaneously aware that a person has lost their life, and to try and learn what one can from it. But I think we should.

I should have been a bit more careful about defining 'work' - you can argue that a screening test that finds untreatable cancers 'works', but the NHS would generally argue that such a test wouldn't be worthwhile.

Another issue is that there isn't just a financial cost of screening tests - many of them find a proportion of false positives, and there are risks to the cascade of further investigations and operations that they spark off. For example, a colonoscopy (for suspected bowel cancer) is a pretty safe procedure, but if you were to do one on everybody in the UK you would kill a few thousand people by causing bowel perforations. If you just pick on people with a family history of bowel cancer, or other 'risk factors', then the equation works out strongly in favour of screening again.

Going back to the topic, if we can have ballistic parachutes, why not flotation devices on the outside of aircraft?

Trying to look on the bright side for a moment and through the tragedy of it all.

This guy died while doing something he loved at a great age - apparently he didn't get his license until he was 76! He certainly lived life to the full and will be remembered in my mind as a positive role model.

What are the odds of any of us dying in our old age doing something we enjoy and not in some care home sitting in our own pi55?

Flying is definitely more dangerous than lying in bed, but you have to have an interesting life and that comes at an increased risk.

It's a bit like making money. If you never did anything interesting, kept your trousers zipped up (or followed some equivalent procedure ;) ), and invested every penny in financial instruments, you would die with a few million in the bank.

You are totally right, and the answer is "not great". Dementia is BIG BUSINESS, one of the biggest service industries going, and the inside of most care homes is not nice (my mum is in one). The name of the game is to take the State funding level (~£500/week in Sussex), fill the place up, and run it minimally. The good ones are £1000/week. It's a haven for crooks, of course, and an easy way to make money. Even the head of the local NHS practice runs 3 homes on the side. I very much hope to die doing something interesting.

As most aircraft are more or less hollow inside the fuselage. Why not emergency flotation devices inside? An airbag run down the centre which can be inflated on contact with the water? I know it wont help the aircraft float level, but being visible for much longer will aid in being spotted and also act as a flotation device.

Just a thought

The biggest worry of such a system would be accidental deployment. You might as well just have two life rafts, one for you and one for the aircraft!! Imagine the problems with control should the emergency flotation device inflate accidently inside the aircraft....

Personally I would rather just get away from the aircraft, into the raft as quickly as I could, in the simplest way possible.

A PLB, flares and fluorescein all add to your visibility in the water.

I'm not sure about that - perhaps it is for the crooks. There's a reason the good ones cost £1000 a week. Social services generally pay below cost, and nursing homes are obliged to take a certain proportion of social services residents - I've really never understood how they get away with this. The outcome is that if you don't keep your nursing home full, and with a high proportion of private residents, then you can lose money very quickly.

~~~

I am always pleased to hear about older people doing things like flying, and this chap's forced landing was good enough for his wife to survive it.

~~~

I see the point about accidental deployment being an issue, but you could make the same argument against ballistic recovery systems. Actually, could you combine the two?

I guess the real argument is that you would have to take all that weight with you even when flying over Arizona, whereas with a life-raft you only need to take it when you need it.

You could always buy a pressurised plane, and make sure you do a really really smooth ditching so the hull doesn't come apart :)

I cannot see it sinking, so long as the outflow valves are shut (no idea if that is possible).

One can pick up an old PA46 for not much these days.

I would go for a smoke canister instead of flares, assuming you're flying in daylight. And instead of fluorescein I would get this:

Rescuestreamer :: Rescue Technologies Corp. - rescuestreamer

The best thing in a life raft would be a nice warm gurl :)

I believe it is. I think Sully with typical presence of mind took such precautions before ditching in the Hudson River.

(He may even have had a stewardess lined up for the liferaft...)

The A320 has a guarded "Ditching" push-button that makes the outflow valves close, but on Sully's plane they didn't have enough time to get to that item of the emergency check-list.

It wouldn't have made much difference though, as the rear bulkhead cracked under the pressure of the splashdown.

And this was probably the best executed ditching possible, in the best possible circumstances (no waves to speak of, what I remember from the videos I've seen.)

It always makes me smile when I'm reading through the seatpocket safety card, and see pictures of the plane after ditching, where everybody calmly takes of the high-heels and steps into the slide doubling as a liferaft. The waves drawn on these cards are no more than 10cm high. In the North Atlantic? Are you kidding?