Great Advice CFI......Not

AlexF

AlexF

Well-Known Member
Back in my days of Private Pilot training when we praticed simulated engine out, we found places to land. Usually, it would involve landing at the Port Of L.A. One of my instructors advised me to land on an empty piece of land in the middle of a construction area saying that even though you may runoff the pavement, you won’t hit anything. While another instructor advised me to land on the strip between stacks of cargo containers saying the containers will sever the wings and take the brunt of impact, I won’t hit any cars, and I will slide to a nice stop.
Yha Right! I don’t have a link, but an airplane about an hour ago recently crashed into the exact area my 2nd instructor told me to land at. The pilot apparently is in critical condition, and his plane is folded like an accordion, great advice Mr. CFI! I’ll just think for myself, thank you!

Interesting to hear his story, pretty sad though hope he comes out alright.
 
Sad to hear for sure, Picking a correct spot to land in a engine failure is tricky and depends on a lot of factors. Somtimes landing like that isnt hat bad, I flew up in BC in the rockies for a while and sometimes the best place was to stall it in the tops of trees as slow as possible. Certainly Id choose containers over a busy residential area or school bus.
 
I hope I don't sound like I'm monday-morning-quarterbacking, because I wasn't in the plane and don't know what the problem was. For all I know he might have had smoke in the cockpit and could hardly see.

But if the engine quit and the one suggestion you mentioned was the best option, that being using containers on either side of an aisle to sheer the wings off of the plane, I think I'd just land in the water. I don't know if I'd want to have thread the plane through a needle and chop both wings off.

If there's a nice twenty knot breeze going, pointing into that and holding the plane off in ground effect might get you down to 20 knots ground speed at impact on the water. I'm not too fond of this idea either because you'd have to get the heck out right away but it might be better.

But we weren't there. Hopefully he gets out of critical condition okay.
 
BIggest thing to remember about landing in water is land by shore so once you can climb out you can actually make it to shore with the injuries you sustained, also a cessna will take a while to sink, so You can get up on the wings for a little time, well at least the few that were landed in water at my old flight school did.
 
Mountain Flying said:
well at least the few that were landed in water at my old flight school did.
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Landing in water happened on a regular basis at your old flight school??
 
Landing in water happened on a regular basis at your old flight school??
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I was just thinking the exact same thing ... how many did you witness before you realized it was time to find a new place to learn?
 
The container idea is not a bad idea. Somebody should have told him to hit the bottom container of the stack, not the top. :) :mad: Hey look, I am bi-polar!
 
just cause one person doesn't quite get the landing in a certain spot doesn't mean its a bad spot alltogether. Lots of peopel have crashed landing on runways...that doesn't mean the rest of us should avoid them. Some places are better than others, sometimes you just dont have any other choice. When I did some flight training over Tokyo, if we couldn't find a golf course somewhere, we'd simulate an approach to a river cause that's all there was room for.
 
I think what you're failing to realize is that man just survived an airplane crash following the advice your old instructor gave you. Not many people go through an airplane crash and live to tell the tale.

Sounds like it was ok advice to me.
 
jrh said:
Landing in water happened on a regular basis at your old flight school??
Click to expand...

No only twice one was about 10 years before I went there. In the mountanous area the best place to to a forced landing usually is the water :(
 
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