Emergency Water Landing In Gulf Of Mexico Following Engine Failure

16 miles north puts you out of gliding range of the Gulf from my calculations.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Look at the section regarding high-wing aircraft which are generally fixed gear.
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I don't think that's relevant.

They mention only one incident where it was specifically a fixed gear that didn't flip. Just because most high wings are fixed gear does not mean that fixed gear ditching don't result in a flip more often than not. It could be the incidents they review have a high percentage or high wing retracts. But since the source data isn't provided, there's no way to know.

What is relevant is the there is a section in the article specifically concerning landing with the gear retracted or not. The only variable there is that fixed gear airplanes typically have gear fairings where retracts never do.

IMO, one article (even if it is written by Paul Bertorelli who seems to be pretty objective) using an unknown sample group does not make for a compelling result.

If (for some bizarre reason) I had to take off knowing that I was going to have to ditch, I would be leaning towards and mid or high wing retract.
 
Flying in underwear/swimwear at night over water? What a random scenario...
 
Did we ever figure out what went wrong? When they first mentioned 16 miles north that seemed to put them well within gliding range of roads and land. The choice of attire seemed peculiar as well...

Now.. onto journalism (mini rant warning)
**is proper grammar or a simple pre-publish-edit really that difficult for most people? I've made my fair share of typos here in my short time so far at POA, fine, but if you're writing for a publication I feel there should be a higher standard to be held to... just a few things that jumped off from the article posted by JohnH above:

"When business is good, it means a bad things have been happening"
^don't need a comma and don't need the "a"

"It's happened quite a bit lately. its kind of weird..."
^the second "its" is not contracted correctly, should be "it's" not "its"
^missing capitalization to start the second sentence

"The crash, still a sobering reminder of how many incidents have happened so far in 2017 alone."
^sensationalism is my biggest media gripe, this is trying very hard to paint GA in a poor light. Why not show actually how many people have died in Florida this year from air crashes, and then compare that to deaths from other "safer" activities..?? Or even better, how about highlight the good training and overall safety culture that resulted in two people walking away from an off airport landing?

Lastly, the aircraft summary shows the O320 at 180 hp.. shouldn't that be 160 hp?... but I can forgive that part of the article
 
It was night. That probably made the shallow water preferable to white knuckling it into unknown darkness over land or a populated area/road.

Flying in swimsuits around Florida doesn't strike me as that weird if they were coming from a day at the beach.
 
Tantalum said:
Did we ever figure out what went wrong? When they first mentioned 16 miles north that seemed to put them well within gliding range of roads and land. The choice of attire seemed peculiar as well...

Now.. onto journalism (mini rant warning)
**is proper grammar or a simple pre-publish-edit really that difficult for most people? I've made my fair share of typos here in my short time so far at POA, fine, but if you're writing for a publication I feel there should be a higher standard to be held to... just a few things that jumped off from the article posted by JohnH above:

"When business is good, it means a bad things have been happening"
^don't need a comma and don't need the "a"

"It's happened quite a bit lately. its kind of weird..."
^the second "its" is not contracted correctly, should be "it's" not "its"
^missing capitalization to start the second sentence

"The crash, still a sobering reminder of how many incidents have happened so far in 2017 alone."
^sensationalism is my biggest media gripe, this is trying very hard to paint GA in a poor light. Why not show actually how many people have died in Florida this year from air crashes, and then compare that to deaths from other "safer" activities..?? Or even better, how about highlight the good training and overall safety culture that resulted in two people walking away from an off airport landing?

Lastly, the aircraft summary shows the O320 at 180 hp.. shouldn't that be 160 hp?... but I can forgive that part of the article
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At least they didn't say "nucular:" that one drives me crazy.
 
Bonchie said:
It was night. That probably made the shallow water preferable to white knuckling it into unknown darkness over land or a populated area/road.
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Fair enough, and I wasn't there. I've often wondered what my decision process would be at night if I had an engine out... mountains, forests, and water all look dark at night... at least the water you can survive the initial impact as opposed to coming down on trees, buildings, or the side of a mountain

But looking at the sectional 16 miles north of KCGC is well over land and doesn't appear too populated, there are roads, etc. If they landed in Yankeetown that suggests they started their glide toward the water assuming the engine out occurred somewhere over Dunnellon and came down in a marsh. Not sure I'd want to land in a Florida marsh, personally I would take my chances landing with the traffic on I-19 or RT-41

**But the moral of the story is they survived and obviously exercised good ADM... so this is more just thought exercise for me and what I would do than critique of the OP!
 
MassPilot said:
Flightaware shows 180 hp for that tail number.
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Figured they took it from an online source. Since many 172n's have the 180 conversion so did this most likely, they just didn't swap the 320 to 360. No biggie, I forgave that one :)
 
When I flew there a couple years ago, IIRC the water way pretty shallow just off the coast to the north. Lots of sandbars and swampy areas visible from the air.
 
one particular 172 POH says:
"Avoid a landing flare because of difficulty in judging height over a water
surface. The checklist assumes the availability of power to make a
precautionary water landing. If power is not available, use of the
airspeeds noted with minimum flap extension will provide a more
favorable attitude for a power off ditching."

The min flap makes sense to get the nose as high as possible, I don't know about the 'no flair' part. seems like you'd want to be as slow as possible, I guess they just don't want people to stall and fall if they misjudge.

I wonder if OP will ever rejoin the thread and share any details of his success.
 
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Bear in mind that I'm a mechanic and not a pilot, but I've been told, and tend to believe, that minimum forward speed is your friend in any water landing; more so with fixed gear. Pancake it in if you can and your chances of flipping are reduced. Your chances of survival are always better at lower speed. Makes sense to me. One of my former customers had an engine failure and planted his 210 in Lake Erie gear up. He said the landing was a non-event. All got out safely. I'm not ready to test the theory in a fixed gear plane. Unlike Cajun, I've not been intentionally dunked. Ask the pilots of AF 447 how it feels to hit the water at speed. Oh, wait. They can't answer.
 
comanchepilot said:
why would you land in the water if you can make the beach? Make the beach you can make a road - make a road and you can truck the airplane out.
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It wasn't too long ago someone landed on a Beach and hit someone. People on this board ripped him mercilessly for landing on the beach where there might be people instead of landing in the water (in the waves) where he stood a good chance of dying.
 
No such thing as a beach really along the Nature Coast - there's the Gulf that transitions into salt marsh and estuaries/"creeks".
I still don't know into which I'd rather engine-out.
 
Good job

You are probably too young to catch the movie reference "Who's the U Boat commander?"
 
OP Here,

Sorry for the delayed response. Dealing with life and college has been daunting. Any questions I can answer for you guys? We were in our bathing suits because we had just spent the day swimming in the gulf at KCDK (highly recommend flying there, just practice up on your short field technique before arriving). In addition, I was not 16 miles north of KCGC. That was a poorly placed ballpark estimate. I do not remember exactly where we were when it failed but we were over land, over swamp land, and out of gliding range from any airport. The only thing bellow us was an unlit highway and swamp land. I decided on the water because it seemed better that wrapping myself around a tree or a lamp poll that I couldn't see. Best of luck to any of you who attempt that.
 
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Bottom line is you did great. No one got hurt. It's hard to think of a better outcome even with the benefit of hindsite

Gary
 
GaryV said:
Bottom line is you did great. No one got hurt. It's hard to think of a better outcome even with the benefit of hindsite

Gary
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I see what you did there.
 
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