Hacker News Reader

> I’m not a licensed pilot, so I’m just arguing from my intuitive understanding of the risks involved.

> But if it was me in that plane and I saw a 10% risk of serious bodily harm / death in trying to land and a 0.1% risk in jumping, it would be tempting to jump.

I think your intuition is wildly off base w.r.t. the risks of general aviation and sky diving.

If you exclude experimental aircraft like fighter jets and kit builds, general aviation isn't much more dangerous than riding a motorcycle. The leading causes of death are misjudging the weather and miscalculating fuel because most of a pilot's training isn't in how to fly a plane but how to troubleshoot it midair or land safely if that is impossible.

An unplanned skydive in a mountainous area in Southern California during Santa Ana season? Now, that's risky. (Edit) For perspective, Nevada sky diving companies won't even jump over Black rock desert because of the wind and that's a desert so big and flat that it's used for amateur rocketry in the 100k+ feet range.

> If you exclude experimental aircraft like fighter jets and kit builds, general aviation isn't much more dangerous than riding a motorcycle.

Sure, but now we’re talking about a situation where your engine has already failed… That’s very different.

> Sure, but now we’re talking about a situation where your engine has already failed… That’s very different.

What to do on engine failure is one of the first things they teach you after basic flight lessons. After that many instructors will even simulate surprise engine failure by cutting off the engine at random while the student is trying to learn about some other emergency situation. Engine failure is part of the check rides every pilot needs to pass to get a license.

You said one of the leading causes of death was miscalculating fuel. I.e., engine failure. (I assume you don't mean weight miscalculation)

By that logic the only cause of death in GA is "plane hit the ground."

When the engine stops working because it doesn't get enough fuel because there's nothing left in the tanks, the root cause is not putting enough fuel in the tanks, not engine failure.

> By that logic the only cause of death in GA is "plane hit the ground."

Here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29731719 it seems like you are essentially saying "engine failure is not too dangerous; one of the leading causes of death is running out of fuel".

I did not say running out of fuel should be formally classified as an engine failure. It was more that I supposed that the effect on the airworthiness of their airplane should be approximately the same whether the engine stops due to failure or running out of fuel. So that makes your comment appear contradictory. Hence my prompting for an explanation, I'm quite willing to believe I misunderstood something of your post or about aviation so I didn't intend for it to sound glib.

My apologies, this discussion leans heavily into federally mandated jargon that has very recently been drilled into my head and it's all to easy to forget how overloaded the words are - as an SWE in my day job the irony is almost palpable.

I'm only a flightsimmer but even fighter jets can probably make it to somewhere with the kind of energy he had. A Space Shuttle or a Blackbird might have been a different story. If you're busting through Autobahn at 240mph and the car suddenly goes neutral, trucks coming up behind is going to be quite low on the list of immediate dangers.

I live not too far from where this was supposed to take place, and November is not a bad time for winds. If you go further East (or South as people say here) that may change, but Lompoc -> Mammoth ending somewhere described as "50 miles N of Santa Barbara" doesn't seem like it would take you there.

I only pointed out the Santa Ana winds to emphasize the "unplanned" portion. Even a 10-20 mph gust is enough to bash a skydiver against a rock outcrop, and (in my experience) that's the equivalent of a light morning breeze in mountainous regions.

I think it's pretty obvious this was staged and he very carefully chose the landing spot.

Your intuition here is wrong. Probably the better way to think of it: in a car crash, would you rather be the person in the car or the pedestrian?

While I have never flown a plane nor parachuted, my understanding is that the maneuverability options of both are going to be roughly equivalent, so that either option will have roughly the same ability to choose the site of collision and (for small aircraft) even roughly the same speed at collision. And that makes the choice down to having a layer of metal that can absorb some of the impact for your versus having to be in the exactly correct position to absorb the impact energy best with your body.

Unless cars have ejection seats it's not the same comparison. Pedestrians in this case are potential hikers or people in the area.

Another licensed pilot here (but not a skydiver).

I would have attempted a controlled crash over gentle mountainous terrain like this. You want to dump the aircraft's kinetic energy rapidly but not suddenly -- gliding into the side of a cliff will kill you, but keeping the airplane pointed forward while shearing off the wheels and crumpling the nose is fine. It looked like there were several areas where this would have been relatively safe to attempt. You don't need a nice flat field for a survivable crash.

After you're on the ground, you also need to be able to survive (possibly for days), and then be visible enough to be found and rescued. Staying with the aircraft is usually considered the safer approach, both for visibility as well as the emergency gear that you're supposed to be carrying in the back.

The only terrain where I'd seriously consider bailing out (assuming I had a parachute) is dense forest with no clearings. Surviving a crash like this is incredibly difficult -- you hit a redwood, shear off your wings, and then plummet 250 ft to your death. It'll be hard to spot the wreckage of a small plane from above. Even with a parachute, there's a serious risk of getting stuck in a tree (or impaled by branches). There are basically no good options here.

In short, mountains aren't so bad. But be super careful flying over forests. If this video was a stunt, there's a reason why he decided to stage it over mountains rather than a forest.

> I would have attempted a controlled crash over gentle mountainous terrain like this. You want to dump the aircraft's kinetic energy rapidly but not suddenly -- gliding into the side of a cliff will kill you, but keeping the airplane pointed forward while shearing off the wheels and crumpling the nose is fine. It looked like there were several areas where this would have been relatively safe to attempt. You don't need a nice flat field for a survivable crash.

This sounds pretty scary though… If you were an experienced skydiver, with your gear on, don’t you think you’d be tempted to jump instead?

>you were an experienced skydiver, with your gear on

You would controlled crash the plane because you would know that jumping over mountainous terrain with vegetation is a great way to break a bone which is going to make getting the heck out of there really, really suck.

A plane like pictured is going to stall at like 40mph so that will be your approximate crash speed, which is really damn survivable in an aircraft with a 4pt belt to keep you off the hard bits of the cabin.

Risk of some bruising and maybe a concussion beats risk of broken ankle any day.

No, even then it’s the wrong call. You’re forgetting what happens when you land after jumping out of the plane if it’s not staged. No cell service, no epirb, no flares, no first aid kit, etc. One broken leg because you floated into the dense trees and you’re dead.

Experienced sky divers get to choose their jump points and landing sites. They don’t get thrown out of the plane at an arbitrary time with no preselected landing side.

I think the risk of dying in a crash are still too high. If I had a parachute and a knew there was nobody else who would be hurt if I bailed out, I think the parachute is safer. The plane is going to crash either way.

You're in a metal shell in the plane. Even the small trees can impale you under a parachute.

I used to work in SAR. I've seen crash sites where tree branches punctured through helicopter blades.

It's not so cut and dry as you might think.

I have plenty of hours flying planes (unlicensed - while doing aerial work and playing around to kill time thanks to my instructor pilot), and have a limited amount of experience skydiving.

One thing in these comments I haven't seen said: F*K that plane. Off runway landing has significant risk. Parachute is so close to 0.0 risk that you do it just for fun on a day off. I wouldn't do an off runway landing just for fun on my day off.

The thing is staged, no question. The guy knows he messed up and will pay for it. But if I had to decide between my life and protecting a bunch of metal tubes and (fabric | aluminium, not sure), I know what I would do.

As a skydiver, I think it’s important to note he didn’t have an emergency chute but a regular sport one. They are extremely maneuverable and if there is a small clearing or riverbed nearby (he looked down for such a thing) the risk of injury is nearly non existent for an experienced skydiver.

The whole thing looks planned, but if I were in the same situation I’d definitely be jumping over trying to crash land a cheap plane in a riverbed or clearing.

>>"But if it was me in that plane and I saw a 10% risk of serious bodily harm / death in trying to land and a 0.1% risk in jumping, it would be tempting to jump."

Of course. Point is, risk does not actually turn that way. Parachuting into rocks is not exactly safe and easy either! Vast majority of pilots are much more trained to safely land than to safely parachute. Movies give us this idea that you pull a cord and land feather like. That is empathically not the case. Especially for an untrained person, parachuting on safe ground will break your limbs virtually guaranteed.

Small airplanes have very low stall speed. If you fly into the wind you can have your land / crash speed very low and very controlled, you are trained to find best possible spot, and are buckled inside metal chassis.

I genuinely believe most licensed pilots would stay inside the damn plane :)

> Vast majority of pilots are much more trained to safely land than to safely parachute

So if the person is an experienced skydiver, doesn't the equation change towards ditching the plane?

Mind you, no one is arguing whether the video is real or not, that's conclusive that it's likely fake. But what if an experience skydiver was actually in this situation?

no

if skydiver has a pilots license he will always prefer to try to land it, unless the wings broke off

I am not an experienced professional skydiver so I really cannot speak to that. :-/

I think he should still follow the procedure far further than showed in video (where he doesn't follow ANY), and I still feel he should have tried far harder to find a landing spot - cessna 152 has 11 to 1 glide ratio, which means for every foot of altitude you can travel 11 feet of distance. I imagine his airplane has roughly comparable gliding distance so given his original height, he had a LOT of time and options he seemed to have immediately squandered. At best, assuming reality, that feels like a yahoo parachuter rather than methodical pilot, and not advice / approach to follow.

The vast majority of private pilots are not trained parachutists and don't fly regularly with parachutes.

I think an important thing to note here is that as a pilot, bailing out does not absolve you of your responsibility for the safe operation of the aircraft, so if it hits something or someone when it goes down, your still on the hook for that.

Its also important to remember that wilderness does not mean people are not there, so if you do something stupid thinking noones around so noone can get hurt, you might still hurt someone.

> Its also important to remember that wilderness does not mean people are not there, so if you do something stupid thinking noones around so noone can get hurt, you might still hurt someone.

And just because people aren't directly in the path of a falling plane doesn't mean that the pilot isn't putting people's lives at risk. The recent rains have improved the situation a bit, but a plane crash in the remote mountains of Southern California? That's how you get wildfires.