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Comment by nhayden | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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".

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".

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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