"Prepare to ditch!"

in the last 32 years of being an international Ferry pilot I've made over a 100 ocean Crossings and most of those were in single engine aircraft so as you can imagine ditching in the ocean is my number one concern when I'm fairing a plane well getting food poisoning in Karachi is number one but ditching is definitely a close second and it's not an irrational fear back when I started in the early 90s we were losing three Pilots a year into the North Atlantic alone and the company that I started working for Orient air had lost two pilots in the preceding two years just before I started and once it started fairy flying I knew a lot of guys that went into the water and didn't come back and I was fortunate enough to meet a couple of guys that ditched and survived I met one of them one time while I was in St John's getting ready for a flight to the azors some young pilot had come up to me and asked me if I was taking the northern route and the northern route is basically going from St John's up to Greenland or Iceland or maybe go up to Goose bear or couette basically up over the north North Atlantic and it's never really a great idea in the winter time for a number of reasons number one it's super cold even on the ground I mean planes freeze engines are hard to start batteries get drained deicing is really expensive prop cables freeze so just being on the ground is a problem in the North North North Atlantic in the winter time but the biggest concern is icing when you're in the air in the North Atlantic I mean you run into some serious icing problems and that's what kills a lot of Pilots so definitely not saying I've never done the north northern root in the winter time but I try to avoid it so when this young pilot asked me about it I said no not like that last last month because a pilot just the month prior to that had I'd heard ditched a Mooney halfway between St John's and Iceland and as soon as I said that I Heard a Voice behind me go and what would that be looked over my shoulder and there's another pilot sitting on the back of this couch I go suppose that was you he goes yeah like felt pretty crappy about that but he was cool about it and came over we started talking and told me the story about what happened apparently he was he had left St John's and route to Riki viic with the owner in a in a Mooney and after they had been flying about 3 hours the oil pluses started dropping were losing oil someplace cind head attemps started coming up they called a Mayday turned back to St John's but it didn't make any difference shortly after that their engine smoke started coming out of the engine started making a real squealing noise and says as soon as he started seeing some Flames start flickering under the colling and shut her down and Dove through the clouds and ditched it in the ocean and luckily for them it was a nice calm day they the Moon is retracted so they kept the gear Gear Up slid on their belly did such a nice job they're able to open the door step out onto the wing inflate the raft and climb into it without even getting their socks what he said so they climb in there zip the cover up and at that point they uh activated their elt remember this is back in probably 1992 and we didn't have the cool little e-s that we have now that are all based off satellites we would actually fly with elts taken out of airplanes which are better than nothing but not really good so he turned it on it didn't didn't seem to be working he opened it up and he said the the back the case was cracked and the batteries had all leaked battery acid over everything so the CLT had been carried around for the past six months was junk so they were kind of in a pickle didn't know how anybody was going to find them but when they got their Mayday out they had given a pretty accurate GPS position report because they had one of the brand new handheld GPS's back then and within the hour they heard it an engine they open the zipper up and here comes uh Canadian Air Force C130 flying right for him they were like woo all right they've been found you know they're sitting there waving C130 made a pass over them dropped a line of flares uh dropped a little too accurately he told me he said one of the flares drifted so close to the raft they had to push it away with one of their ores made a second pass and dropped what appeared to be one or two Torpedoes in the water they didn't know what that was so they didn't do anything about it found out later that there were two 16 20 man life rafts or something like that and had everything but a mini bar in it so they would have been a lot more comfortable if they had been able to get those but they didn't and they sat there waving at the C130 and watching it fly around and around and they realize you know C130 is not a SE plane it's not going to land and we're getting kind of cold because again this was probably December in the North Atlantic so they went to zip the the cover back up on the raft to try to get warm and that's when they realized that they made kind of a big mistake because with all the se- spray covering the raft the zipper got iced up and they were unable to close it and now they were stuck in the raft with the zipper open and uh they got really cold they were also wearing really crappy survival suits kind of the really thin kind but don't have integrated boots in the gloves now luckily they were rescued by a Canadian fishing boat only eight hours later it happened to be really close to him and 8 hours is very close in Ocean terms with boats cuz boats are slow and they hauled him aboard and took him back to St John so that was the story told me uh it's pretty good I put it in my book fairy pilot it was one of my one of the best stories I'd heard about ditching but uh I've really thought a lot about ditching after that and even to this day I'm almost still modifying my ditching procedures and stuff that I carry with me and I thought I'd share it with you guys guys and tell you my thoughtss on ditching an airplane in the ocean when you're getting ready to ditch an airplane you have to get the cockpit ready and that takes a little time so that's why whenever I'm flying over the ocean I always fly as high as I can that way if I have a problem I've got time to get ready to ditch and the first thing you need to do is get out of Mayday and a current position report don't let them rely on your hours old position report tell them exactly where you are because if they don't know where to look they're never going to find you next you got to get your survival gear and your raft situated in the plane such that when you impact the water they don't go flying around out of your reach the impact is going to be pretty violent so you need to have them secured next to you so you can find them when you're upside down sinking in the water at night throwing a couple of 50 foot waves and uh can be challenging next you got to get your survival suit zipped up get it on and zipped up all the way next after that you want to get your seat Bel your shoulder harness on as tight as possible like I mentioned the impact's going to be pretty violent you want everything to be as tight as possible and lastly you want to crack the door open that way if the airframe gets distorted in the impact the door won't Jam shut and trap you inside as the plane sinking into the bottom of the Atlantic and once you've got the cockpit all set now you have to set up for landing now normally when you land a plane you want to land into the wind to reduce your ground speed in this case of course it would be water speed but when you're Landing in the ocean it's much more important to land in such a way that you don't flip over you want to land with the swells now if you take a look at this page out of the Queener manual that I've got you'll see that they give you two options you can land perpendicular to the swells and try to time it so you land on the back side of a swell a surf down the swell that would be great if you could pull it off but good luck if you unders shoot or overshoot you're going to run right into the side of a wave and that's going to hurt what I prefer to do is the alter method take land perpendicular to the swell so that way if you land on the top of the swell down one side or the other or in the trough you're still going to be probably fine once you did picked your direction now you got to get ready to do the actual touchdown you want to go to full flaps you want to be going as slow as possible and then as you come in there's a couple schools of thought how to actually touch down the water number one some people say should stall the plane and kind of try to belly flop or pancake it in I don't really think that's such a great idea myself I think there's too great of a risk of stalling it and fly doing it too high remember over the ocean it's really hard to gauge your height above the water you know your depth reception is really tough out over the open ocean and if you stalled it too high you're going to nose it in that's probably going to hurt and so what I do is I land as level as as possible some other people they try to come in you know as slow as possible with the tail down and the problem I have with that is if your tail is the first thing to hit the water it's going to kick that tail up and drive your nose into the water and there's a really good chance you're going to flip over onto your back so I personally land as level as possible with the flaps down slow as possible and hopefully it's not going to flip over and the last thing you want to do is take a deep breath just before you hit the water because I once saw an interview of a woman who had to ditch a 182 halfway to Hawaii and she said as soon as she touched down and her no and nosed in the windscreen imploded and immediately filled the cockpit full of water and her first gasp as she hit the water was mostly water so take a deep breath that way if that happens to you you can undo your seat belt get the door out grab your raft grab your survival gear and get out of the plane if you're coughing water right off the bat it's going to be tough to get out of the plane once you're in the water it's time to get out of the plane with your raft and your survival gear remember if you can't make it out with your raft you might as well not even bother because if you are out in the open ocean in just your survival suit you're probably going to be dead in a couple of hours even with a good survival suit cuz the water's just that cold now a lot of guys crossing the Atlantic for the first time ask me what kind of raft do I take with me and that's easy the biggest raft I can find because the bigger the raft the more stable it is the more comfortable you're going to be in the raft for however long you're in the raft because it might be a while remember once you're more than a 100 or so miles out to sea you're out of range of helicopter rescue because they don't have the range to come and get you that means you're going to be waiting for a boat and boats are slow so if you're 500 miles out to sea you might be in that raft for 24 48 hours maybe more maybe a really long time so you want to have a good raft I see a lot of guys flying with these single man rafts which are great if you're in Shore and you're just waiting for somebody to come and get you in a short period of time but if you're going to be out in the ocean for any extended period time I can't imagine anything worse than being in one of these single man life rafts especially if you've got cold weather or some really big waves it would be terrifying to be in one of these stupid little boats little tiny right life rafts in 50ft waves waves breaking you're tumbling down the side of a side of a huge mountain of water no I want a Great Big Raft with a cover covers are essential if you don't have a cover that's going to be a big problem especially in the North Atlantic because it's really cold you know even if you've got a survival suit on after a number of hours you're going to be pretty dang cold in that raft and uh if you're in there for 24 48 hours in the North Atlantic without a cover probably not going to make it anyway um as far as rafts go getting into the raft is really kind of tricky um number one rule first of all is never let go of the raft when you're exiting the plane don't throw the raft out don't set it on the wing and then go back in for extra supplies hang on to that raft if as if your life depends on it because it does once you inflate the raft do not let it go under any circumstances no matter what even if the winds are really light the guys at the Icelandic ocean survival center told me that once you let go the raft it's going to start drifting with the wind and even if it's only 3 miles an hour you're not going to be able to swim that fast especially in a survival suit so under no circumstances do you ever let go of the raft if you need to go back into the plane and get more supplies make sure you tie that raft to your body don't tie it to the plane because once the plane starts sinking if you can't get it undone done well there goes your raft um if there's an injured if there's anybody injured in the party have them hang on to the raft you get in the raft first and then you haul them in by grabbing their harness and leaning back and falling back into the raft we did uh some training uh in Iceland and we practiced that a lot and it's surprising how hard it is to get into the raft now most of the good rafts have a rope ladder underneath the open opening basically it's just a strap you can put your foot in and lever yourself up but if you're in a raft without one of those they're hard to get into especially the big rafts cuz the top of the raft sits a fair amount above the water so it's kind of tough to get in but if you've got a broken arm or something like that that might be really really difficult and uh yeah never cross the ocean without a raft so trying to get out with your raft is essential now I used to fly with a raft and a ditch bag I would have the bag filled with all my signaling devices my emergency food and water everything I needed with me in the raft but the more I thought about it over the years I realized that just getting out of the plane with the raft is going to be hard enough let alone trying to get out with a ditch bag as well and I realized that there's only one way to ensure that I have all the stuff with me that I really need to have with me in the raft and that is to zip it inside my survival suit so all the gear that I really need to have my signaling devices my communication devices my food my water that anything that I really really want to have with me in the raft gets zipped inside my survival suit that way I know I'm going to have it then but the only thing I have to worry about is my raft now I also have a secondary ditch bag with me that's what I call my luxury bag if I'm in such a situation that I can get out with two things maybe I the plane's still floating I can walk get in there and take more stuff out I'm grabbing my luxury bag it's got extra food extra water um all the stuff that make me comfortable for an extended period of time in the raft there might even be a flask in there um somewhere for morale but you know put ever whatever you want in your your luxury bag if you ever have to ditch so if you got the plane all ready you got the cockpit ready you cut out your distress signals time to land the plane if you do everything everything right you might have successful ditching like this 310 that went down about 100 miles Northeast of Hawaii number of years ago he got his distress call out in time that the Coast Guard was there waiting for him when he ditched and they got this great video check it out a plane had declared emergency Fuel and was estimating that they would be ditching 100 miles uh to the northeast of Hilo International Airport uh so we rued with the uh the aircraft and set up for a uh a rescue uh for when he entered the water uh we launched the uh rc1300 uh to rendevu with the pilot and established Communications uh we pre-staged our helicopter over at Hilo international airport so it would be a standing by for the moment that he entered the water and the Coast Guard Cutter Kisa was also deployed we wanted to fully prepare him for the uh ditching scenario uh so how to set up his cockpit exactly how to enter the water and uh it's a very complex maneuver that he exe executed uh very successfully and uh was prepared for uh we just wanted to make sure the pilot was fully prepared for the scenario it's not something he gets to practice very often um but because we were able to communicate with him and uh explained to him how how best to execute the maneuver uh turned out to be a successful scenario okay here's all the stuff that I need to have with me in the raft all this stuff gets zipped up into my little survival bag and gets tucked inside my survival suit that way I know that I have it no matter what happens so first of all I got my signaling devices carry along a silom I used to carry along Marine flares had a marine smoke bomb and a coup and an army pencil flare set up these things are awesome they uh visible from a long ways away and and flare guns reason I don't usually carry this stuff around anymore is because I can't bring it home you can't bring it back on the airliners because they don't let you board the plane with stuff that goes boom even in your check bag so unless you want to leave it at your destination can't bring it with you might be worth it though you know the more signaling devices you have the better um I also bring along just a good oldfashioned signal mirror again I got this and and the pencil flare out of my Army survival vest when I was a huey crew chief nowadays instead of a flare gun though I usually bring along laser pointer this thing works really good you can uh shine it in the direction of a helicopter coming to get you don't shine it right at him you're going to Blind the pilots any Ships coming in you can wave it around at night it's very visible even in the daytime it's not too bad so these things are key can bring along lots of spare batteries zip them up in a Ziploc bag keep them dry laser pointers key um most important thing I bring these days is my eer these things are amazing uh they're waterproof they float satellite based they'll tell Rescuers exactly where you are and uh itn't tell you who we are so that's kind of Handy I also bring along small portable handheld GPS this is not an aviation GPS you don't need one when you're in a raft but I always bring these in case I get a hold of somebody I can tell them exactly where I am how fast I'm drifting and in what direction so in case I lose contact with them they know exactly where to look for me also bring along a handheld radio this is Handy for talking to any planes that are coming to look for you I don't think it works with boats or ships that are coming to look with you um look for you and I don't have room for two radios and a marine radio would be handy but I just don't have the room not sure if this would work for contacting a boat I don't know a whole lot about ships I probably should I just never looked into it but uh this comes along with me too these days I also usually bring along a sa phone a sa phone would be great I mean what better you can call somebody and actually talk to them I can call the ship that's going to come out and get me and have them bring me along a pepperoni pizza so sat phones are key also bring along headlamp for obvious reasons then some stuff to keep me more comfortable in the raft I keep bring along a number of space blankets because it's cold in the raft I think I mentioned in another video I've been through Iceland's ocean survival course twice and when you're sitting in a raft in the North Atlantic you realize even if you're in a survival suit it's still really cold because the floors aren't insulated and that will just suck all the heat out of you eventually so as the more insulation you can have between your butt and the ocean the better uh couple chemical hand warmers case you need to warm stuff up to use a use radio or whatever I bring along some sealed food help keep your energy up energy is key um for you know keeping your core temperature up I do bring along a big army bandage wrapped in duct tape the duct tape will come in handy for who knows what but the bandag is in case I get really injured in the ditching and I'm bleeding a lot lot have some way to uh stop the bleeding also carry along a raft patch kit little rubber repair kit and some metal foil tape because you never know if the raft you're going to be in has its own patch kit and kind might be kind of Handy to have somewhere to patch a raft if it gets a hole in it also bring along couple bottles of water because after being cold in North Atlantic one of your main concerns is going to be water one of the things i' I've read a lot about ocean survival and ditching you know accounts of guys that have ditched and one of the things they always say is they wish they had some water or more water and I'm going to bring my phone along it's not going to be handy at all in a survival situation but it's my phone and I want to have I don't want to lose my phone you can also uh film what you're doing and that'll be cool too now all this stuff fits in my little survival bag here it's usually pretty pretty Plum full with that stuff and if I got an extra room I'll put maybe a couple more candy bars or something in there and all this gets zipped right inside my survival suit that way no matter what happens I do this before I ditch so no matter what happens I get out with this stuff now last year I got this vest it's actually a fishing vest and I kind of haven't decided if I'm going to use it or not it might be handy you know you put it on over the survival sup and you could have all kinds of stuff in there um I'm a little hesitant to use it because getting out of the plane in a ditching situation is kind of job number one and it might be tough to get out the door might be jammed a little bit you know there might be Jagged pieces of metal and I don't want a lot of extra stuff that can that can snag up on things and this has lots of pockets that yeah you can put lots of neat stuff in there but if it SS as you're getting out and make you go down with the ship that would be bad jurry St out on that one I'm going to have to do some experimenting yeah I could probably go inside the suit I don't know I'll have to think about that anyway this is the stuff that I'm going to have with me in the raft no matter what and there you have it those are my thoughts on ditching now for anybody out there any navy Pilots or other faery Pilots have any other ideas or tricks up their sleeves please put them in the comments below I'm all ears I do these videos to learn from you as well as you learn from me I'm always open to new suggestions you never know when that one little nugget of information is going to save your life so please put any good comments Down Below in the comment section all right well thanks for watching the video please uh like And subscribe support the channel and keep your speed up

Channel: Kerry McCauley

Views: 48,997

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Id: vQBN8SLkw7k

Length: 23min 55sec (1435 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 05 2023