Lucky escape from beach crash

[red750]

Video of a Vans RV-6 with motor out, attempting to land in shallow water and flipping. Rego appears to be G-... or F-....

 

https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/28299202/most-miraculous-crash-survival-videos-from-around-the-world/

 

 

[Nobody]

Video of a Vans RV-6 with motor out, attempting to land in shallow water and flipping. Rego appears to be G-... or F-....https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/28299202/most-miraculous-crash-survival-videos-from-around-the-world/

Refer to the details here:

 

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=126217

 

The ditching was the result of a mid air collision during a formation airshow display.

 

 

[kasper]

Language gives away nationality of registration - Italian - I think it was this one -

 

 

 

[Guest SrPilot]

Video of a Vans RV-6 with motor out, attempting to land in shallow water and flipping.

Hi red750. The video is the landing sequence of the survivor following an airshow midair collision. He escaped with minor injuries thanks to a bunch of people who rushed from the beach into the sea and lifted the inverted airplane enough to remove the pilot.

 

Here's the story of the collision. They "hooked" a wing. It looks in one video as though one airplane did a tight turn while in a formation flyby. There was not enough clearance for lead ship to clear the trailing airplane. They were just too close for a clear turn across the path of the trailing airplane. At least that's what it looked like to me in one of the videos and from a few posted photos of the crossing sequence.

 

It's in Italy. The other airplane crashed into the sea about 2km from the beach. It was floated by rescuers but the pilot was dead.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/italian-air-show-plane-crash-5800311

 

There are a number of videos surfacing probably because everyone on the beach not involved in the rescue apparently had a camera or a cell phone. Any event now seems to be captured on video by someone.

 

 

[red750]

From posts subsequent to mine I am now aware that there was another aircraft involved, and that the pilot of that aircraft had died. The lead I got to that article and video came from a story on the Yahoo home page on the internet headed Amazing escapes, and included a number of other stories. It made no reference to the midair or the other aircraft.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Don't worry Red, it happens.

 

I thought he carried out a great ditching considering what would have been on his mind. A great example to follow.

 

 

[Guest SrPilot]

I thought he carried out a great ditching considering what would have been on his mind. A great example to follow.

For me, ditching in water with fixed gear is a bummer. Given a choice, land seems to me the better choice. I haven't studied the videos on the point, but the hard sand between the dry beach and the wet ocean could have a better bet, BUT pedestrians along the beach may have removed that option. I wasn't in the plane so I do not know what the pilot saw on the approach. I did see a number of people standing on the beach in the videos I saw, so he may not have seen enough clear area for an attempt at the stretch of water-hardened sand.

 

I owned an RV-3A and I've flown RV-4s and RV-7s. I think these airplanes were RV-7s. If they flip in water, which a fixed gear airplane is more likely to do than a retractable with gear up, and the water is shallow, exiting the airplane can be a real problem. In a flip-over, there's no door egress and the canopy quite possibly will on the hard surface in shallow water. Watching the spectators coming to the rescue in one video seems to support my view that the pilot was probably trapped, and was saved only by quick thinkers and quick actors.

 

I was at Sun 'n Fun on April 16, 1996, when the highly skilled, very well known and respected Charlie Hillard, formerly of the Eagles Aerobatic Team, suffocated after a nose-over during the landing of his Hawker Sea Fury. In his case, he was wedged between the seat and the ground after the canopy canopy and the rescue was too late. No few spectators could flip over a Sea Fury. He would have fared better had he been flying his Christen Eagle of early years.

 

His accident was on a hard surface. Water adds the potential for drowning to the equation. In my RV-3A, I set my preferences at land-on-land and keep the plane upright (if possible). Unlike the RV-7, my RV-3A had NO roll bar. If it went on its back, I was in way more trouble than a turtle on its back on a super highway. I have seen some RV-3s with roll bars. Good idea in my book.

 

BTW, Charlie Hillard was a US Aerobatic Champion (in the late 1960s I believe), and World Aerobatic Champion in the 1970s. He had about 3 decades of flying aerobatics and airshows. I always was impressed by his aerobatics skill set.