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Aeronautical debate: emergency landing into trees or water?

Landing on the ocean would be considerably different than the average mountain or forest area lake or river. No question about that.

Of course, with the ocean, you should absolutely chose to land on the beach if available. If it's a rocky crag dropping directly into the ocean, yep, you don't want to ditch there. Even if you get out of the aircraft, you're likely going to get slammed into the rocks and get killed that way.

Still, I come back to the notion that I have never been forced to fly over an area where glide distance put me over such a dire situation of trees, lake, river.

Ken
 
Being a bit more of a problem solver, here is how I would handle that situation. I would have the person in the right hand seat take over the plane, then I would tell him/her that I was going to go scout out a good landing/crashing area....open the door and jump. A few seconds later, I would pull the rip cord and deploy my parachute. HA HA. See I knew that earning my Chicken badge in the Boy Scouts would come in handy!

OBIO
 
I'd pick the water everytime. Better to hit the water at 60knots and flip/stop than to hit 50ft tree tops at 60knots, flip flop spin smash and then drop engine first 50ft putting the firewall through your face.
 
Major_Spittle said:
I'd pick the water everytime. Better to hit the water at 60knots and flip/stop than to hit 50ft tree tops at 60knots, flip flop spin smash and then drop engine first 50ft putting the firewall through your face.
Click to expand...

until everything you have is wet, you're facing down hypothermia and night is approaching.
 
Bush Crashes

We get at least 1 or 2 crashes a winter in northern Manitoba, it seems, where the planes hit the spruce. Usually almost every one gets out. I think the deal here is that our Black Spruce trees are pretty spindly and scraggly and only get thinner the farther north one goes, so they make for a pretty soft landing. Not sure I tackle any 200 ft tall Sitka Spruce on the west coast. The only good thing is after the crash you have lots of firewood.

Regards, Rob:ernae:
 
I'm not sold on those chutes. I can see where if you had lethal structural damage preventing aircraft control, then they are your best bet. However, in any other circumstance, I still believe you are best to fly the dang airplane! Once you pull the ripchord, you have surrendered control to the winds.

And it works provided you land on reasonably level terrain.

But what if instead you land on a hill, or mountain, or even on top of a tall tree and your cockpit gets impaled, or the plane has the chute ripped off by a tree and your aircraft tumbles the final 25-50 feet?

I recall reading where at least one, and perhaps two, pilots were killed after deploying that chute because he landed on rough terrain and the airplane went tumbling down.

What I really hate is Cirrus making an overt marketing effort to say this is an approved solution for dealing with spatial disorientation in instrument conditions for VFR pilots caught in weather. First, that has already been shown to encourage VFR only pilots taking off in marginal weather because they "can always pull the chute!" Second, the best way to avoid spatial disorientation is to get more training and earn your instrument rating! In terms of flying into rough IFR weather even with an instrument ticket, you pull that ripchord in vicinity of a thunderstorm or icing, and you've likely signed your death certificate because when the convective finishes business with your chute, or the icing collapses the chute, you're going to have a long ride to ponder your decisions! Hopefully, by that point, you'll be knocked unconscious and out of your misery.

Ken
 
viking3 said:
We get at least 1 or 2 crashes a winter in northern Manitoba, it seems, where the planes hit the spruce. Usually almost every one gets out. I think the deal here is that our Black Spruce trees are pretty spindly and scraggly and only get thinner the farther north one goes, so they make for a pretty soft landing. Not sure I tackle any 200 ft tall Sitka Spruce on the west coast. The only good thing is after the crash you have lots of firewood.

Regards, Rob:ernae:
Click to expand...

An outstanding observation!

BTW: Since you're up there in a region I haven't flown in before, do you think it's fairly easy for a VFR pilot to simply make small modifications to his routing and/or altitude and keep himself in position for an engine out glide landing on a reasonable dirt or paved road or empty and reasonably level field?

Ken
 
As pilot, i would prefer landing on the tops of the trees then in the water. Landing in the water is like hitting a cement wall.
 
hammer353 said:
As pilot, i would prefer landing on the tops of the trees then in the water. Landing in the water is like hitting a cement wall.
Click to expand...

True depending upon your impact angle and speed. Water is not compressible, which is why boats can float. Water simply displaces.

However, if you skim the water at a slow speed, then it doesn't need to be like concrete. The volume of water isn't that large and it can displace since its on the surface and has someplace to displace easily to.

Yes, if you crash into it -- like those many scenes from World War II -- then it is like concrete because you aren't skimming the surface, you are trying to compress the water because it doesn't have the time to fully displace. So, it ends up displacing your aircraft!

From the Sully ditching to many examples of ditchings in World War II, it can be done. An AC-130 and C-130 from Equador (I believe) successfully ditched and most onboard survived.

Cheers,

Ken
 
tigisfat said:
For a dead engine? The BRS has a descent speed not unlike landing speed.
Okay then, let me ask you this. Do you deploy the BRS over the trees or the water? touche sir. :icon_lol:
Click to expand...

Trees.

If, IF I knew that I could not make a safe dead stick landing, Ken, I see the BRS as a more viable solution in this particular situation.
I'd rather float into trees, than try to land on top of them.
Plus I'd hope that parachute would stay up on top of the trees. Give searchers something to see by air.

hammer353 said:
As pilot, i would prefer landing on the tops of the trees then in the water. Landing in the water is like hitting a cement wall.
Click to expand...

I had a lengthy reply about this, then deleted it and went with the BRS response instead.
Okay, the BRS is kinda a smart ass response. I do that, God created me this way. :icon_lol:

Water with fixed gear means like hammer353 said.
I've always heard of it as landing in wet concrete.

Three words:
Sudden Deceleration Trauma.

I don't care how tight your straps are, you going to have secondary sudden deceleration to ALL of your internal organs, including your brain, as they continue forward after the impact and sudden deceleration.
The brain slamming into the inside of the skull, for example.
I know a few things about this, seen it for years when I was working on the road. Same thing happens in car accidents.

Combined with possible chances of drowning, but the big factor is hypothermia.
Water landing means getting wet. Wet in higher altitudes and the mountains .
It gets cold when the sun drops down in the mountains.
Being wet on top of it, with a possibility of even minor, yet survivable hemorrhaging from sudden deceleration trauma, means your chances of survival to the next morning are being greatly reduced.
Well, that's my thoughts anyway...

So yup. I'd try to pancake into the tops of the trees.
Probably survive the drop to the ground better via branches.
I mean, guys had parachute failures during WWII, and survived falling into trees.

But that just my opinion. Everyone's is unique. :icon_lol:
 
BTW, I don't think anyone's answer is wrong here. All good answers. :applause:
As PIC, you gotta make the choice at the moment.
If I knew the area has 200'+ tall trees as viking3 said earlier, I'd probably switch to water too. :icon_lol:
 
My scenario was for a Cessna 172 to eliminate variables and ask the decision. What if you can't retract the gear or pull the BRS cord?

I'm pretty sure I'd have to make up my mind at the moment based on what the trees and water looked like.
 
I have to agree...unless you have an actual snapshot of the situation it is hard to make a call. My flight 'training' to date has been through flying with my Dad, and one of the things he asks me a lot is where would I put down if I lost the engine now? I tend to spend a lot of time either looking for other traffic or pondering where that possible landing area is.
 
Land of The Bushplane.

Ken Stallings said:
BTW: Since you're up there in a region I haven't flown in before, do you think it's fairly easy for a VFR pilot to simply make small modifications to his routing and/or altitude and keep himself in position for an engine out glide landing on a reasonable dirt or paved road or empty and reasonably level field?

Ken
Click to expand...

It's pretty much floats or skis to make a safe emergency landing once you get north of here. In fact if you draw line NNE of Gimli all the way to Hudson's Bay you only cross one dirt road and would not cross an airstrip. That's somewhere around 500 miles. The terrain is exposed rock, swamp and thick stands of Black Spruce with thousands of lakes and rivers cutting through it. The East side of Lake Winnipeg is under consideration for a UNESCO World Heritage Site as one of the largest undisturbed tracts of land left on the planet.
 
Let's see what some raw statistical analysis of Cessna Skyhawk (and other fixed gear high wing GA aircraft) can tell us:

http://www.equipped.com/ditchingmyths.htm

Looking at the raw numbers, it turns out there is no significant deviation between low wing, high wing, retract or fixed gear in terms of exgress probability from ditching. Clearly, if you ditch near the bank, you have less distance to swim, which obviously increases your survival odds. Hypothermia can certainly be a factor, but no different than getting wet from a rain storm.

Most significant of all, it seems there is around a 90% odds of survival from a ditching, especially if you do it right (touchdown at stall, not into swells, and keeping the nose pointed up with full aft elevator and rudder keeping the nose centered.

Cheers,

Ken
 
viking3 said:
It's pretty much floats or skis to make a safe emergency landing once you get north of here. In fact if you draw line NNE of Gimli all the way to Hudson's Bay you only cross one dirt road and would not cross an airstrip. That's somewhere around 500 miles. The terrain is exposed rock, swamp and thick stands of Black Spruce with thousands of lakes and rivers cutting through it. The East side of Lake Winnipeg is under consideration for a UNESCO World Heritage Site as one of the largest undisturbed tracts of land left on the planet.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a dynamite argument for a twin engine aircraft or a single with floats! :engel016:

Ken
 
don't know how relevent it is to this situation since the 172 wasn't biult by the "iron works" but I know that F4F wildcat pilots were advised to aim between tree trunks in a crash landing so as to snap off the wings and dissapate as much energy and velocity as possible before coming to a stop giving the airframe structure the best chance to protect them
 
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