Two Airplanes Successfully Ditch in Pacific | Hacker News Reader

Two Airplanes Successfully Ditch in Pacific

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A testament to our jaded modern times: I tried to skip ahead in the first video, because you know, 4 minutes was too long for me to spend watching an airplane parachute down out of the sky and into the Pacific Ocean. Get to the action, amirite? Then when I skipped ahead, the video got stuck. I tried a few more times, then gave up and went on to the next story. Because you know, it's just a plane falling out of the sky straight into the swirling ocean...caught on video.

Wow -- It was cool to see they had parachutes on the plane itself. Is this common on smaller planes these days? I've always wondered if/why airliners couldn't do something like this.

It's a question of scale.

I think these systems are banned in the UK as they're explosive devices and the risk of them going off on the ground was deemed more dangerous than their benefit. /noresearch

Standard equipment on a Cirrus SR-22. Ballistic Recovery Systems, a company from Minnesota.

Outside of most Cirrus aircraft, they're not standard. They work pretty well on light and ultralight (single engine) aircraft.

Think of the extraordinary size and weight a chute or series of chutes would be for a short haul 737-sized aircraft. The cost of lugging those around across a fleet would be absolutely prohibitive. There's also little reason for this type of safety mechanism for such passenger jets. Commercial twin or quad engine planes are extraordinarily safe, and offer many more redundancies than a tiny single engine plane.

I believe you also suffer from square-cube effects. Take a light airplane with a parachute, and scale up all the linear dimensions by a factor of two. You now have something with four times the drag (drag is proportional to cross section) but eight times the weight (weight is proportional to volume). That means your terminal velocity increases by 40% (proportional to the square root of mass/area). In short, if you take a system designed for a SR-22 and just scale it up for a 737, the jet would descend much faster under the canopy, probably to a degree that it would no longer be safe. The parachute would have to be proportionally much larger still.

And as you say, they wouldn't add much safety because there isn't much more to be had. I can only think of two large jet crashes offhand that would have potentially benefitted (the DC-10 that crashed in Sioux City, and that Japanese 747 where the tail fell off) and that's from a period of decades.

Ideally you'd only need chutes big enough for the cabin and that it would detach and parachute down. Would probably still be prohibitively expensive, but a fun thought exercise.

Then you have the remainder of the plane falling, uncontrolled, and potentially towards populated areas. Without a parachute at least the pilot will (hopefully) be trying to aim for an empty patch, and with a parachute at least the rest of the plane is falling rather slowly.

The pilot can aim for an empty patch, then activate the parachute so that the cabin lands softly and the rest of the plane falls on an empty field. Having the chute system installed doesn't remove any options from the pilot.

First, removing the cabin will cause a large shift in the plane's center of gravity; without adjustment of the flight controls, it is likely to stall, dive, tilt to the side, enter a spin, or some combination of the above, and is unlikely to hit anywhere near where it was aimed.

More importantly, though, the parachute is also meant to provide an escape mechanism for unrecoverable spins and stalls, not just engine failures or fuel exhaustion. In a spin or stall 'aiming for an empty patch' is, essentially, not possible, as the control surfaces of the plane are not usable due to reduced airflow. Additionally, in IMC (Instrument Meterological Conditions), it's not possible to see a safe landing spot. This is an ideal use case for a parachute, but if the plane breaks away as you say, the remainder of the plane will land in an unpredictable location.

There's also the increased complexity involved with ensuring all flight control and avionics connectors between the cabin and body of the plane break away reliably and quickly when the parachute is deployed, and never break away otherwise.

In short, adding a breakaway cabin might make the pilot safer (but might not, given the additional complexity for breakaway avionics and flight controls), but it puts more risk on the public at large when deployed, so it's understandable why such a system was never developed (with the possible notable exception of military ejection seats).

More importantly, the force of the parachute(s) braking the plane would put a lot of stress on the plane structure and it's likely to break apart since it's not designed with sagging or hogging in mind (to borrow from naval architecture where those forces are explicitly modelled due to wave action.)

They actually don't help much, and arguably make things worse, because pilots that have them do things they would otherwise shy away from, like fly over mountains in marginal weather. Cirrus has only had one or maybe a couple more legitimate saves.

Most airplane accidents happen on takeoff/landing or inadvertent terrain collision in bad weather. Neither of which a parachute would help.

Source: Pilot, skydiver aviation nerd.

Philip Greenspun is a pretty accomplished pilot and has some good writings on it: http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/cirrus-sr20

If his coining the 10th rule of programming wasn't enough for me to want to meet him add in the aviation stuff and he's definitely on my top list of people I'd want to meet.

You really don't know what you're talking about. There is no evidence that the parachute entices pilots to take greater risks (if I'm wrong, by all means cite some), any more than car seat belts entice drivers to take more risks. Furthermore, "As of 25 January 2015 there have been 51 saves with 104 survivors in aircraft equipped with the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS)." (https://www.cirruspilots.org/copa/safety_programs/w/safety_p...)

Source: Pilot, skydiver, Cirrus owner.

While I am certain there will be no evidence that parachutes have any impact on pilot behavior based on the small sample size, I am also certain that there is nothing magic about pilots and that they suffer from the same effects of psychological risk compensation as everyone else does. If parachutes make taking risks less fatal then more risks will be taken. It is as simple as that.

A few details here from someone who flies that plane: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/01/amazing-...

I wonder if the pilot gets charged expenses for stuff like this - either by the coast guard or the cruise ship that picked him up.

Probably the insurance covers it.

The insurance does cover it, although fuel exhaustion is very much pilot error.

Sometimes it is pilot error, but apparently not in this case. Seems to be a failure in the ferry tank pumps according to comments on avcanada.

Or it's an insurance scam because the owner needed some cash. A staged accident in the middle of an ocean is a nice way to pull that off.

Yeah, but a staged accident in the middle of an ocean sounds pretty unsafe, too.

Not at all. GA aircraft have slow stall speeds, and as you can see from both scenarios, first-responder response time is extremely quick when you follow protocol. The Cirrus even has an airframe parachute for a soft landing.

Not for nothing, but Vso (stall speed with full flaps) in the CIrrus SR22 is still 59 knots (68mph/109kmh) and remember airframes don't have the same crash safety features that automobiles do. It's a lot slower than an airliner's would be but you're not exactly gently touching down.

The Cirrus SR22 airframe parachute ensures a soft, slow landing.

These are not unsurvivable forces we're talking about.

By far the biggest risk in ditching is drowning. This guy was a highly experienced ferry pilot, so he knew precisely what he was doing.

Ray Clamback, one of the more experienced ferry pilots (300 US->AU deliveries from memory) went into the drink off Hawaii on two separate occasions and had to tread water for 10 and 6 hours respectively. Nothing "safe" about it.

I never understood why they don't just strap them on a ship and send them out as project cargo. Or take the wings off and containerize. That's done all the time for Yachts which are perfectly able to be sailed to destination. Only real difference is how long it takes but a modern container liner is suprisingly fast.

Time and money.

For example, to ship a new Cirrus SR20 to Australia starts at $28,995 and you'll need to wait for factory reassembly and certification. To ferry the same aircraft costs $22,800.

Ditching small planes has something like a 90% survival rate, and that includes planes that ditched in much worse situations.

For someone in a bad enough situation that they are willing to commit insurance fraud by faking a crash, it probably is a pretty good risk.

See this earlier comment for a link to data on small plane ditching: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8957313

That said, insurance companies aren't stupid. Would they really let the person insure the plane for so much that it is better to lose it for insurance than to simply sell it?

there was a member of Microsoft Pilots that did exactly that. Faked a crash on land as prep, crashed in Elliot Bay and swam to the house of his ex and "stole" a car in an attempt and insurance fraud.

Are realtime wind maps and forecasts over the pacific accurate enough for planes of that size?

I'd imagine a strong enough headwind would burn through your fuel pretty quickly.

Flying from the mainland to Hawaii you require a large margin due to wind uncertainty. Between Kauai and Oahu, not so much...

Edit: This story is about someone flying from Hawaii to California where the flight ended up taking 4 hours longer than expected due to unexpected headwind. Luckily for him, he was in an airplane with extremely long range and had planned to fly directly to Oshkosh, WI! http://www.ez.org/t/cp34-p3

That's a wonderful story. I'm not sure what I like most, the electronics troubleshooting, the perils of pre-GPS navigation over the ocean, or the cavilier-but-thoughtful approach to solving all sorts of problems encountered along the way. Thanks for posting it.

When you get your private pilots license, the rule is "always keep flying". No matter what problem you have, as long as you have altitude and speed first, you've got time to solve whatever the problem is.

I don't know about the coast guard, but rescuing people in need is part of standard maritime law. The SOLAS (International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea) Convention contains "... an obligation for all vessels' masters to offer assistance to those in distress".

A related question I had was whether the Coast Guard resents doing this sort of work - "ugh, another idiot who got himself into trouble." In particular in the context of sailors and kiteboarders who get stuck in SF bay.

The answer, which surprised me, was no - at least not institutionally (according to a friend who was in the coast guard for a time.) Turns out 90% of the work of the coast guard ends up being search and rescue type stuff, and they all know that this sort of thing is exactly what they signed up for and appreciate getting to "do" something instead of just patrolling.

I've gotten the impression they get a bit annoyed when people do stupid things and need rescuing but have no problems with rescuing people that encountered problems doing something that is normally safe and common.

They almost never charge. But contrary to lutorm, they could. I recall at least one story of folks who were extraordinary negligent in getting stranded in national parks and were charged for a very large helicopter search and rescue operation. I can't find the correct article for victim rescue operations, but I assume the same reasoning applies as in the Law of Salvage where someone who rescues cargo is entitled to reward even if they don't sign a contract:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_salvage

However, this article uses the recent example of the Carnival cruise rescue to give some very good arguments why the Coast Guard is so reluctant to charge.

http://gcaptain.com/cost-rescue/

(Note that Carnival has not charged for using their cruise ships to pick people up in the past.)

You mean the coast guard or a random other ship?

There are no corresponding rules for rendering assistance to people on land, so I'm not sure the NP comparison is valid.

I definitely had the impression that, like the article you linked, there was a "maritime tradition that holds that the duty to render assistance at sea to those in need is a universal obligation of the entire maritime community". Maybe they can try to recoup their costs later, but that was not my (uninformed) impression. Or maybe things are different in national vs international waters?

International waters makes less difference than people tend to believe. In international waters, your vessel is held to the laws of it's flag country.

It's not lawless - it's just confusing because different vessels are held to different laws.

This can for a fact not be a complete truth, because some ferries have to wait to reach international waters before opening the tax free shops (back in the day when there were such things, I guess). If they were always held to the laws of their country, why would it matter where they were?

The fact that you have a duty to do something doesn't mean you aren't also entitled to compensation afterwards for risks and costs you encountered. See the first paragraph of this article for an explicit discussion:

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1288377?sid=2110519172...

The only thing thing I can't rule out for sure is that government salvors are somehow not entitled to compensation in international law even when private salvors are, but that would be pretty weird. In any case, it's definitely not true of "the entire maritime community".

Pretty amazing video! It looks like the parachute caused something of a hazard once the craft was in the water. It seemed to drag it along and contribute to it rolling over when the pilot was sitting on the wing – that looked like it could have been very troublesome. Glad it all worked out!

Also, that survival raft looks pretty small! Does each passenger get one too?

they don't come with the airplane, but since pilots are trained to be paranoid, I imagine they're a relatively common purchase among guys flying over the ocean.

Kits - including the raft - are available to rent for trips over the ocean. Flying a little plane around Hawaii or the Caribbean, it's a good idea.

http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?node=14:2.0.1.3.10#se14...

Assuming this is a part 91 flight, when flying overwater more than 30 minutes flight time or 100 nm from short, they are legally required to have on board:

* A life preserver for each occupant of the plane * Enough liferafts for all occupants [however they can share the same one as long as they're not exceeding the rated capacity and buoyancy] * A flare for each liferaft * One portable, floating, water-resistant emergency radio beacon * A lifeline * Survival kits attached to each liferaft

Just for context: Without a parachute, these conditions (open ocean, 9-12 foot seas) are hard to survive, right?

Not really. The Cessna had no parachute, and the statistics seem to imply that most pilots ditch successfully. See e.g. http://www.equipped.org/ditchingmyths.htm

If anything, it's surviving in the water that is difficult, especially in cold waters.

Thanks. My cursory googling did not turn up any actual rate statistics.

I'm sure there are stats out there...I remember reading a TSB report a while ago (we have a lot of floatplane accidents up here in Canada).

As long as you're wearing a shoulder harness, the main risk is drowning after the ditching. To have a good chance of surviving, you need to be already wearing a lifevest, know how to open the door underwater by memory, and then be able to get out. You can do an underwater egress course, which helps increase the odds.

"I'm sure there are stats out there"

(The link supplied by @lutorm contained some stats.)

Is the camera filming from the HC-130 Hercules airplane?

Yes.

it says, Client: my_ip_address is not authorized to access URL:/avwebflash/news/Two-Airplanes-Successfully-Ditch-In-Pacific223452-1.html

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