A Lesson In Ditching?

C150J

C150J

Well-Known Member
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A Lesson In Ditching?
http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Lesson_In_Ditching_194440-1.html

By Russ Niles, Contributing Editor

Any landing you can walk (or swim) away from may be a good one but it seems unlikely that Nor Azlan Yazid's ditching technique will make it into Malaysian Airlines' procedure book. The 25-year-old student in the airline's training program was on a solo training flight when his Diamond DA40 developed an unspecified engine problem over water about two nautical miles south of Palau Aman. After radioing distress calls and circling briefly to check his options, the young pilot decided on an unorthodox, but ultimately successful, course of action. Witnesses told Bernama.com that as the aircraft neared the water, Yazid managed to get out of the aircraft just as the plane hit. Restaurant owner Abdul Halim Ayob said he spotted the aircraft circling overhead: "I rushed to have a closer look and saw the pilot at the door of the aircraft as it was coming down but he managed to jump out just before it nose-dived into the water," he told reporters Friday. The DA40 doesn't have a door, but a forward-opening canopy, so it's unclear just how he got out of the plane. He was picked up, unhurt, by a nearby fisherman.

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Makes me smirk for some reason - envisioning those "but if you jump out at the last minute you'll be okay!" arguments.
 
I always wondered if you'd be better off jumping out of an a/c with a fixed gear right before ditching. Interesting story.
 
I'm surprised he was able to open the door to jump out. I wouldn't want to jump out of a moving anything - the shock of his body hitting the water could have knocked him unconscious. I wonder if he jumped out just as the aircraft was skidding to rest...or the witnesses just exaggerated the timing.
 
grassrootsflying said:
I'm surprised he was able to open the door to jump out. I wouldn't want to jump out of a moving anything - the shock of his body hitting the water could have knocked him unconscious. I wonder if he jumped out just as the aircraft was skidding to rest...or the witnesses just exaggerated the timing.
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I thought I read somewhere that you only have a 50% chance of surviving a ditching situation in a fixed gear aircraft. I'm not sure what the force of hitting the water at 50-60mph, but I would think that you might skip a couple times. I base that only on those speed boat folks I see fly out of their craft and skip across the water.
 
I wonder if the guy crawled into the back seat and got out the side door, which is sort of a gull-wing opening instead of the forward opening canopy.

If it were me I'd unlatch the door, but stay belted in until after impact. I'd try to hold it off as long as I could and stall into the water and take my chances getting out.
 
Have any of you guys seen the myth busters show about driving your car into water and not being able to get out? same thing would probably happen in an airplane.
Seth
 
sefro said:
Have any of you guys seen the myth busters show about driving your car into water and not being able to get out? same thing would probably happen in an airplane.
Seth
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Aircraft transparencies are a little thinner in aircraft then they are in cars. I bet with a solid kick it still should come out.
 
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