PA28 ditched off Guernsey
 

BBC News - Aircraft ditches in English Channel

Breaking on the BBC now, hope the two onboard are all right.

Edit: BBC now saying that it was flying in from Lee-on-Solent, owned by Alderney Flying Training.

Wow
 

Interesting day to decide to go flying. The tafs have been crap all day.

Hope they were wearing life jackets :( hope they turn up ok...

EGJA 121405Z 1215/1219 11015KT 9999 FEW003 BKN025

TAF for Alderney doesn't look too bad... Crash happened about 1550 apparently.

Interesting day to decide to go flying. The tafs have been crap all day.

With respect Mr Paul, the TAFs weren't that bad. We don't know about the ratings held by the pilot or the equipment on board the aircraft. I would have happily made that journey today, with an option to divert to Bournemouth or Guernsey.

BBC reporting wife picked up from life raft but husband missing.

The following have been engaged in the search effort:

• Alderney lifeboat
• Guernsey lifeboat
• Mona Rigolet (French rescue vessel)
• Our Miranda (fishing vessel)
• Abeille Liberte (large French tug)
• Jork Rider (Russian merchant ship)
• MFV Kerrie Marie (fishing boat)
  
• HMS Tyne
• 2x SAR helicopters
• Lion's Pride (Channel Islands Air Search aircraft)

For shipping movements as they happen, click here. Looking at this, a number of other boats could be involved but these are probably on fishing operations.

TAFs don't mean much when you're in the f******g water in November ffs

A woman has been air lifted to hospital having been found in a raft, the search continues for the other occupant.

BBC News - Aircraft ditches in English Channel

Crag.. give me strength... think about it

That must be the most unpleasant remark Ive ever seen following a serious accident. They havent even recovered the people concerned yet. Would you like to rephrase it?

Why, just why, do these events bring out the worst in Pprune or Flyer?
It shows Private Pilots in such a bad light.

Smudger, I suggest you look at the recent Red Arrows thread and you will see 8 pages and 159 posts to date. Read it. Thats how it should be done.
http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...-merged-8.html

Search resumed earlier, after halting overnight. Many other vessels now involved.

A lovely local couple - flying community here on Alderney in shock.

Our thoughts with the dear lady and her family.

So sorry fo Alderney and the family
 

My inlaws live in Alderney and I fly to visit regulary so this very sad accident is of particular interest and my love / hate for the news is fueled, wanting to hear real facts quickly, not miss facts from speculaltion and at the moment there seems to be so little facts. Unusual to be south of the island when flying from the mainland? Nothing clear of the actual ditching point, wx appears to have been perfectly flyable. Wish I had found it yesterday but Marine Traffic - AIS | Digimap Ltd, Guernsey the French tug named earlier, the light blue tag was / now searching some 30/40 miles NNW of Guernsey

Yes Simonrennie..
 

a crious place to ditch if flying from south coast to Alderney.. fingers still crossed but it will have been a long cold night. tp

Obviously very strong currents in the CI and now hours later but water is 15 degrees, you don't get much warmer than that but without a survival suit on it looks very sad for him, the poor poor lady and family , but yes everything still crossed here.

The BBC map is wrong. The actual crash site is thought to have been about 20 miles WSW of Alderney. This would be an odd course from Lee-on-Solent but last night's activities indicate this position. Fingers crossed but comments about him not leaving the aircraft are worrying :(

The position (from AIS) of HMS Tyne yesterday afternoon was more like 20nm N of Alderney, This would be just outside the Class A airway to Ortac and an entirely logical place to be if one was crossing at a decent height without entering the airway.

Edited again to add - from reading the "other" side seems the search is very widespread. I think the confusion over where the aircraft was will continue for some time and we're unlikely to get much more closer than guesswork for a while.

Well said Neil. A sad time.

Currents can be as strong as 10 kts around the Casquettes lighthouse. The coastguard have a program that they put in the initial position and it calculates a search area based upon tides and winds etc.

Someone mentioned that it might be considered an odd place to ditch, but if you have no option...... but unfortunately even in 15C water temps, time of survival is not that long unless you have a life raft and immersion suit.

Probably not a helpful comment on this sad incident but this is why, after ~50hrs in PA28s in my post-PPL renting, I wasn't going to get a single door plane. I had the lock jam on an Archer once, and anyway it was obvious that nothing short of a snake was going to get out of one in a hurry, especially if the front RHS person is still in place.

Sorry, I meant that it was an odd place considering the aircraft was travelling from Lee-on-Solent to Alderney - no intention to offend. The search has now been called off, and the lady has been discharged from hospital in Cherbourg into the care of her family.

A very sad event, my thoughts and condolences are with the poor wife. The reality is that even if you survive the landing into water (difficult in any aircraft, worse in a fixed undercarriage aircraft) then the odds are against you, you have got to get out, get the raft out and inflated, get into the raft, all of these things to deal with, coupled with shock and fear. Very difficult.
It’s frightening when you take a look at survival times for a person in water without an immersion suit, women last longer than men and the figures below are rough estimates, factors such as health, injury, mental state (some people fight more than others and have greater tenancity to the issues faced) all figure in the equation.

If this poor chap has lost his life, which sadly is looking like the case he has not died in vein if a few of us learn, discuss and remember from the incident. Yes scary if you read those survival times for the first time but it is survivable and I have in my head from somewhere 90% chance of surviving the chrash into water and 90% chance of then dying of hyperthermia, which is why a life jacket in April, a T shirt and shorts and sandels is somewhat unwise when the water is probably at its coldest. A single door is the least of your problems but you need to be comfortable and happy in what you fly but areoplanes don't know when they are over water or when its dark and currency and an aircraft in good nick is key, cut corners and one day, someone, pays. I carry black bin bags, rope and spare gloves in my grab bag even without the dingy you lose the use of your fingers quickly, tie people together and the bags trap water around your body. If that keeps you alive another 5 minutes and the heicopter is 4 minutes away I will go with that. It might not work if I even need it but its no good being there wishing I had some of the cheap easy bits from home, you can only think about it and have some planning as opossed to none. Busiest shipping channel in the world?.... but you are still a needle in a haystack.

Here is a link were his wife says he was unconscious when the plane started sinking & she couldn’t get him out.

He must have controlled it pretty good as he got it down well enough for his wife to get out without a scratch & close to a vessel. Deepest sympathies to his family

English Channel plane crash: Hunt for pilot underway near Guernsey | Mail Online

I often feel uneasy when i read the replies to incidents such as this on pprune.I hope the majority of readers and not instant contributers do feel for the people who suddenly had their lives turned upside down.Ive often seen incidents such as this posted here turn into rants or i told you so advice and thats why i didnt follow pprune for some years.

The pilot has been named as Ian Dickinson.

English Channel plane crash: Millionaire Ian Dickinson, 79, killed | Mail Online

RIP - thoughts with the family. It's always a risk when you take a single engine over water, especially in a piper with only one door.

The Mail article you have linked to there is one of the worst pieces of journalism I've ever seen! trying to link two tragic events into one poorly written article is bad form, and misleading.

What a terrible trajedy.

My wife and I were flying from the Channel Islands back to the UK, a week before this accident, in our PA28. It's ridiculous that it did, but it brought it all into stark reality, and has really upset my wife.

I am extremely safety conscious, and of course we don't know exactly what happened, but it's made me think that I might send myself and my wife on a ditching survival course.

In the mean time, I think I'm going to revert back to taking the dover/calais crossing to reduce exposure to flying over water in a single.

Our thoughts are (as goldeneaglepilot wisely stated) with his poor wife. What an unimaginable trauma.

But I am also extremely grateful for threads like this, as it helps us all learn. I think we all just have to remember that some people in life are morons, and you have to use self moderation to filter out the ludicrous, thoughtless comments and move onto the next post.

Perhaps PompeyPaul (in post no.2) could tell us what was "crap" about the weather. Looks fine to me.

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RIP - The pilot was a fine gentleman and excellent pilot. A very sad loss for the local flying community. Our thoughts to his family at this terrible time.

For those of us (like Mr Dickinson) who are regular flyers to Alderney the weather conditions look lovely. I've made that trip many times in much much worse and in a similar PA28.

I'm guessing that his position was because he realised he wasn't going to make the island and chose to ditch in the shipping lanes near a suitable vessel. He would have had the visibility and probably had thought about that option more than once, as have I on many crossings from the South Coast to Alderney.

The fact that his wife was able to exit the aircraft unharmed with the raft and was picked up very quickly by a merchant vessel speaks volumes for the courage and presence of mind of Mr Dickinson.

RIP.

We will all have our own personal risk tolerance limits. Some people will accept risks of long overwater crossings. I will not now since some engine problems in my then PA28R half way between Le Havre and Littlehampton. Now short crossing only.

Mitigate the risk whichever crossing you are comfortable with - minimum jackets, raft and warm clothing.

a2

Weather
 

The weather I was referring to was at take off, Scumhampton which had mist and crap visibility.

I remember crossing Bass Straight to King Island years ago in a SE Mooney. Overwater crossing are nerve wracking but I just went to 10k feet and kept ATC updated with my position. Twins may have their issues but overwater I would want one every time now.

Watching Channel Island news last night they said the flight disappeared from ATC radar.....did the flight put out a Mayday indicating the nature of the emergency or did they indeed just disappear as the news item suggests.

A tragic incident none the less and shows how important it is to maintain contact with ATC whilst flying over water/inhospitable terrain which sadly many don't bother to do!!!!

It absolutely beggars belief that he would have voluntarily ditched following an electrical failure, as the DT article suggests.
Utterly incredible.

Pure speculation on my part for academic debate and not therefore specific to this accident if an aircraft suffers complete electrical failure over the sea and has no hand held gps or radio i guess some will struggle to navigate. Flying a compass course, watch and map are pretty much your options. Fuel allowing we would make for land and depending on how good we thought we were a specific destination and evetually use the coast as a point of reference. Unused skills suffer over time and how good a job most of us could do is another debate. Would we expect to find one of the cis from 40 miles away, or would we aim to "bump" into france or england? Visibility might be very poor.

I think on the whole nearly evetyone would give it a go realising land any land is better than the sea and with enough fuel would make landfall but i bet many would be a few miles out ;).

I recall an old friend recounting war time tales of delivering aircraft to the azores and other far flung islands coasting out with enough fuel to get there with a small reserve to search for the islands as necessary but not enough to get back. With map, pencil and often poor met forecasts it left me thinking it must have kept ones attention. Did they have df - well thinking about it i guess they did but i never asked the question - it was a good yarn though.

Some of the old airmen were very good. They could tell the wind, well enough, from the sea state, and make heading corrections that worked well enough. They could fly 100-200nm over open sea and find an unlit aircraft carrier.

Mind you, many didn't, and one doesn't read about those.

Today this is just crazy. You carry a handheld GPS and a handheld radio.

And you don't fly to the C.I. with near-empty tanks so you get the benefit of the lower fuel price, when you could have filled up at say Shoreham and - as an owner, for sure - pocketed the duty drawback on the exported fuel.

But we will continue to see accidents like this.

I too think it unlikely that he would have ditched just because he had an electrical failure...there must be more to this...:confused: