Posted for "John Hafen" :
The guy who drove into Lake Powel is an acquaintance of mine. He is a high
time pilot who has owned lots of planes. He test drove a Lancair IVP and
considered it before buying the Cirrus. He is not a stupid person. He's a
very qualified pilot.
A year or so back, this guy was flying his Cessna P210 above a solid deck at
20k+ feet when his crank shaft blew up. He went to "nearest" on his Garmin,
descended through a solid deck of weather picking up a lot of ice, and
successfully dead sticked into a remote air patch in Wyoming.
I would hope, but not guarantee, that I could perform as well as he did in
this situation. (Imagine having the engine go way quiet all of a sudden
over a solid deck somewhere in Wyoming.. How do you spell FEAR?)
In spite of what the airliners tell you about a water landing, very few
people actually survive. In most small planes, everyone's spines snap just
above the pelvis as the lower seat belt holds them back against the seat and
as their upper bodies move violently forward as the plane skips and bounces
across the surface of the water. Everyone dies. Even at speeds as low as
90, most spines get snapped. If they survive the "landing," the cold water
gets 'em. Time of Useful Consciousness (TUC) is only minutes. 30 minutes
after a cold water incident, search and rescue goes into recover mode.
The guy who drove into Lake Powell freely admits that he lost his mind
flying so low over the surface of Lake Powell and that it was dumb. After
clipping the water, the plane came to rest upright in the water, floating.
Miraculously, everyone survived. No one's spines snapped. There were no
injuries at all! He and the passengers had ample time to consider the
situation and figure out what to do next as the Cirrus floated. They took
off most of their clothing and began the 300 yard swim to shore in 40+
degree water. My friend couldn't get his cowboy boots off and they nearly
killed him in the swim.
All three very nearly did not survive the swim. Each went under numerous
times. Each thought it was over. They reached shore and huddled wet in sub
30 degree weather until the morning. They would slap each other and fight
just to stay alive as they were freezing to death and losing consciousness.
I bought a Lancair rather than a Cirrus because LANCAIRs GO FASTER! After
building it full time for the last 9 months I wonder about my decision..
However, in my ever-so-humble yet freely and obnoxiously expressed opinion
(sorry), the fact that a Cirrus was involved in this incident had nothing to
do, what-so-ever, with Cirrus. This one, gents, was, even by the free
admission of the pilot, purely pilot error.
What it tells me is that you can get in trouble fast no matter what you are
flying if you push it too far. Most of us haven't installed Martin-Baker
ejection seats in our birds yet, so if we go stupid, we kind of have to go
down with the ship.
So here's to smart flying. High. Fast. Far far away from mountains and
water and other things that might ruin one's paint job.
Cheers,
John
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