Fly as far into the crash as you can.
March 27, 2019 1:06 PM Subscribe
Steve "FlightChops" Thorne is a private pilot, bringing some of the more unusual corners of general aviation to YouTube. In a series of videos, he highlights an area many pilots overlook: what to do after a crash.
-Could Steve and his friends survive in the backcountry with only what they bring in the plane? (Part 2)
-How to signal for help along with some tips on lightweight survival kits and some beautiful mountain flying.
-How do those emergency life rafts work, anyway?
-Could Steve and his friends survive in the backcountry with only what they bring in the plane? (Part 2)
-How to signal for help along with some tips on lightweight survival kits and some beautiful mountain flying.
-How do those emergency life rafts work, anyway?
Many years ago, in the first or possibly pre-blog age, I found a multi-thousand word site, a memoir of how the author's family had survived loss of power in-flight over Alaska in a Piper Cub in the mmmmaybe 1960s. The author's mother was the pilot and they were flying from X (probability dictates Anchorage) to Y, unknown but within the Cub’s flight radius.
(It's probable I am misremembering the plane specifics. Cub works for me. An older, well-distributed light plane of the era)
The author had color photographs of the event posted in line.
My recollection is weak, but as I recall, Mom actually manged to land the no-power plane on a logging road. They were out of radio coverage and it was late in summer, late enough tha they did not expect to meet anyone on the the road. So they walked!
Eventually, as the media evidence attests, they found safety. I cannot recall how long it took, maybe two weeks. I have googled high and low for this story and must have some fundamental deatils wrong.
Finding it back then was wonderful because of the urgency with which the author told her(?) story.
posted by mwhybark at 4:49 PM on March 27, 2019 [8 favorites]
(It's probable I am misremembering the plane specifics. Cub works for me. An older, well-distributed light plane of the era)
The author had color photographs of the event posted in line.
My recollection is weak, but as I recall, Mom actually manged to land the no-power plane on a logging road. They were out of radio coverage and it was late in summer, late enough tha they did not expect to meet anyone on the the road. So they walked!
Eventually, as the media evidence attests, they found safety. I cannot recall how long it took, maybe two weeks. I have googled high and low for this story and must have some fundamental deatils wrong.
Finding it back then was wonderful because of the urgency with which the author told her(?) story.
posted by mwhybark at 4:49 PM on March 27, 2019 [8 favorites]
I read Gary Paulsen's YA book The Hatchet when I was a kid, and these plane crash survival scenarios were all I could think about for a long time after!
posted by hellopanda at 1:34 AM on March 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by hellopanda at 1:34 AM on March 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
I've taken HUET classes
Did you see his videos where he trains with the Coast Guard so that he can be thrown in the water and used for rescue practice?
Not necessarily a big commercial airliner (that's a different kind of risk profile)
I still cringe when people wear sandals on an airliner. If you have to evacuate, it's going to be over debris, hot pavement, broken glass, potentially fire... You're going to lose those sandals in the impact and be going through all of that barefoot. Wear lace-up shoes.
help can still take a long time to get to you for many, man reasons
This publication (pdf) by the AOPA Air Safety Institute has some interesting information - with no flight plan filed, FAA data suggests it can take an average of 40+ hours to find you. Civil Air Patrol figures it's more like 60+ hours. Even with an IFR flight plan filed (so, you've declared your intentions and ATC is watching you) it can still take 10 or more hours.
posted by backseatpilot at 5:46 AM on March 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
Did you see his videos where he trains with the Coast Guard so that he can be thrown in the water and used for rescue practice?
Not necessarily a big commercial airliner (that's a different kind of risk profile)
I still cringe when people wear sandals on an airliner. If you have to evacuate, it's going to be over debris, hot pavement, broken glass, potentially fire... You're going to lose those sandals in the impact and be going through all of that barefoot. Wear lace-up shoes.
help can still take a long time to get to you for many, man reasons
This publication (pdf) by the AOPA Air Safety Institute has some interesting information - with no flight plan filed, FAA data suggests it can take an average of 40+ hours to find you. Civil Air Patrol figures it's more like 60+ hours. Even with an IFR flight plan filed (so, you've declared your intentions and ATC is watching you) it can still take 10 or more hours.
posted by backseatpilot at 5:46 AM on March 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
Longest post-flight solo Arctic survival until rescue: 58 days – Bob Gauchie, February 3, 1967 to April 1, 1967, N.W.T, Canada.
Longest post-crash group survival until rescue: 72 days – Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, October 13, 1972 to December 23, 1972, Argentinian Andes.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
posted by cenoxo at 6:29 PM on March 28, 2019
Longest post-crash group survival until rescue: 72 days – Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, October 13, 1972 to December 23, 1972, Argentinian Andes.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
posted by cenoxo at 6:29 PM on March 28, 2019
Mwhybark, have a look at this:
"Three day hike into Grumman HU-16 Albatross, 7237 near Sloko Lake, BC.
The aircraft crashed with the loss of three of the six onboard, June 15, 1967 while on a search for another aircraft.
Radio Operator, Robert W. Striff Jr 26, Pilot Lt Robert D. Brown 30 and Copilot Lt. David J. Bain lost their lives. Remarkably, Thomas Graham 27, an electronics tech, Gene P. Blay 37, an aircraft mechanic and Mike Korhonen 25, of the Alaska State Police survived the accident.
The aircraft they were searching for, an Aeronca Sedan on its way from the Lower '48 to Juneau, turned out to have suffered a relatively minor accident due to fuel starvation; (the Aeronca Sedan is rather notorious for fuel venting system failures causing the gas to siphon out in flight). In the resultant forced landing, the Aeronca overturned in a swamp and the father / daughter crew walked 15 miles over three days, out to the Atlin Road."
Wikipedia, Check Six
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:16 AM on March 31, 2019
"Three day hike into Grumman HU-16 Albatross, 7237 near Sloko Lake, BC.
The aircraft crashed with the loss of three of the six onboard, June 15, 1967 while on a search for another aircraft.
Radio Operator, Robert W. Striff Jr 26, Pilot Lt Robert D. Brown 30 and Copilot Lt. David J. Bain lost their lives. Remarkably, Thomas Graham 27, an electronics tech, Gene P. Blay 37, an aircraft mechanic and Mike Korhonen 25, of the Alaska State Police survived the accident.
The aircraft they were searching for, an Aeronca Sedan on its way from the Lower '48 to Juneau, turned out to have suffered a relatively minor accident due to fuel starvation; (the Aeronca Sedan is rather notorious for fuel venting system failures causing the gas to siphon out in flight). In the resultant forced landing, the Aeronca overturned in a swamp and the father / daughter crew walked 15 miles over three days, out to the Atlin Road."
Wikipedia, Check Six
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:16 AM on March 31, 2019
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"Ultimately, whatever you're wearing might be all you have."
IMHO (as a non-pilot) it's good to think about these things as a passenger, too, especially if you do travel in small planes/helicopters on occasion. Not necessarily a big commercial airliner (that's a different kind of risk profile) - I mean more like "puddle jumpers" and the Cessna one might take one time on a vacation. One of my favorite survival/self rescue stories is that of Lauren Elder, who was a passenger in a Cessna that crashed on the side of a 12000+ ft ridge in the Sierra. After the pilot and passenger died the day after the crash and with what looked like no real hope of rescue, she saw lights from a town in a nearby valley that evening and decided to extricate herself. Wearing nothing but a blouse, a wraparound skirt, and boots with 2 inch heels, and with a broken arm, she managed to descend in ~36 hours. As amazing as a survival tale as it is, she was just out on a spontaneous joy ride and her clothing seriously hampered her - she was super fortunate she didn't get hypothermia or have a serious fall. And not everyone has the same kind of resilience she had access to in that situation.
And just because in this day and age we have so much access to technology to alert people we're been hurt/need rescued, etc., doesn't mean in some areas help is also instantaneous - help can still take a long time to get to you for many, man reasons. (A lesson people climbing CO's 14ers seem remarkably determined not to learn.)
Anyway, this was a fun watch, even for a non-pilot. It was nice seeing him do some honest self-evaluation - that's a good role model! Some of those survival "skills" though - yikes. Although I LOLed when his smoke started blowing into his shelter.
posted by barchan at 3:06 PM on March 27, 2019 [12 favorites]