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Mike Walling
Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Cutter Publishing
ISBN-10: 0982855303
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 193
Copyright: June 2010
ISBN-13: 9780982855300
Price: $7.99 (eBook)
In the Event of a Water Landing tells for the first time the full stories of the Bermuda Sky Queen and Sovereign of the Skies rescues, the only two completely successful open water ditchings in Commercial Aviation history. Using the voices of the passengers, flight crew, and the Cutter’s crewmen an amazing tale unfolds. Their vivid memories, interspersed with contemporary news reports, flesh out the unemotional entries from the cutter’s logbook and official investigations. No one flying, before or since, ever experienced such harrowing rescues.
At 8:15 A.M. on October 14, 1947, Chuck Martin, the 26 year old pilot of the Boeing 314 flying boat named Bermuda Sky Queen, attempted to do what had never been done before — land an 88,000 pound aircraft in thirty-five-foot high seas. The lives of sixty-eight passengers and crew on board depended on his ability.
A mile away was the US Coast Guard Cutter Bibb. If Sky Queen survived the landing, getting the passengers to safety would be their job.
Nine years later and half a world away, the Pan American Airways’ Stratocruiser Sovereign of the Skies, was forced ditch the aircraft along with its 43 passengers and crew without anyone getting killed — something that never been done before with a Stratocruiser.
The Coast Guard was nearby. Once more, if the plane survived its impact with the sea, rescuing the survivors would be in their hands.
In the Event of a Water Landing tells for the first time the full stories of the Bermuda Sky Queen and Sovereign of the Skies rescues, the only two completely successful open ocean ditchings in Commercial Aviation history.
In the Event of a Water Landing tells for the first time the full stories of the Bermuda Sky Queen and Sovereign of the Skies rescues, the only two completely successful open ocean ditchings in Commercial Aviation history.
These two stories encompass many facets of ditchings: bad weather, engine failure, horrific sea conditions, and indomitable courage in the face of death. Between these two are tales of other ditchings as well as the journey we humans have undertaken from the beginning of transoceanic flight to today.
Using the voices of passengers, flight crew, and those who rescued them, an amazing tale unfolds. Their vivid memories, interspersed with contemporary news reports, flesh out the unemotional entries from official investigations.
Excerpt
1. Introduction
Ditching: A planned event in which a flight crew knowingly makes a controlled emergency landing in water.
National Transportation Safety Board of the United States (NTSB)
Flying, for many of us, is routine and not much fun. It’s just a way of getting from one place to another quickly (sometimes) and it often entails a degree of discomfort in the process.
Until US Airways Flight 1549 went down in the Hudson River on January 16, 2009, many people thought the: “In event of water landing . . .” safety instructions were out-dated and just part of the speech left over from a distant time. According to the National Transportation Accident Report, 145 passenger interviews revealed that about 70 percent of the passengers did not watch any of the preflight safety demonstration. In addition, more than 90 percent did not read the safety information card before or during the flight. The NTSB believes that these responses clearly indicate that passenger safety information is still routinely ignored by most travelers.
Fortunately this most recent ditching was a complete success in that no lives were lost. This has not always been the case.
From 1934 until 2009 there have been 25 multi-engine commercial passenger aircraft ditchings for which I have found records. These ditchings did not include aircraft that wound up in shallow water at the end of a runway either through a missed approach or an overshot runway approach. Remarkably, 21 of the pilots put their aircraft down safely. It wasn’t until after the plane was in the water that casualties occurred in 13 of these successful landings.
In the eight ditchings where no lives were lost, two have been in rivers, four in bays, and two in the open ocean. Seven of the eight were in calm water. The eighth is a whole different story. All eight successful ditchings have one thing in common — boats or ships nearby to affect the rescue.
The first of the eight completely successful ditchings occurred on April 25, 1938, roughly 10 miles southeast of Kingston, Jamaica. A Pan American Airways Sikorsky twin engine flying boat ditched in rough seas after losing power to one engine. The 12 passengers and four crew members where quickly rescued by a lifeboat from the nearby cargo ship Cavina. The airplane was lost, but there were no injuries or fatalities among the passengers and crew.
Of the 13 events in which the pilot put the aircraft down in one piece, only to lose people afterward, the first occurred on November 29, 1938. This was a United Airlines DC-3 on a scheduled flight from Medford, Oregon to Oakland when it ran out of fuel. After impact the four passengers and three crew members immediately climbed to the top of the aircraft through the emergency hatch in the pilot's cockpit while the aircraft rode the swells easily until the surf carried it toward shore. However, of the seven people on board only one passenger and the pilot were still alive when help arrived.
The causes of these ditchings, loss of an engine and running out of fuel, are only two reasons why aircraft have been forced to come down over water. Other causes include bad weather, faulty navigation, and in one case, a hijacking.
No mater what the cause, a successful ditching is based on many factors in addition to the pilot’s flying skills. Among these factors are the angle of approach to the water, correct airspeed, liferaft location, emergency evacuation procedures, and breakaway engine design. All these were learned through trial and error, by careful experimentation, or as the result of aircraft evolution from propeller power to jets over the previous seventy years.
Part of the technology involved the evolution of long range aircraft. Initially these were flying boats designed to take off and land exclusively on water. This design was partly dictated by the lack of land-based aerodromes and airports capable of handling large aircraft as well as engineering design limitations of aircraft structure, and engines of the era.
Transoceanic flying was once an elegant experience. Passengers enjoyed amenities which rivaled those enjoyed by First Class passengers on the finest ocean liners or in a Five Star hotel. This past era of more genteel travel is as an essential part of the story as are the technical developments that made such trips possible.
Another crucial factor in safely flying across the oceans was weather. We take for granted our access to immediate weather information anywhere in the world. However, it wasn’t until the first weather satellite was launched on April 1, 1960, that meteorologists were able to get a clear picture of what was going on around the world. Until then, off shore weather reports were sent by surface ships and, from 1941 through 1977, by U.S. Coast Guard cutters manning ocean weather stations at strategic locations along major air routes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Weather forecasting and forecasting techniques were the same as those used by ships’ officers. For fast moving aircraft this was often more of an educated guess than a statement of fact.
As with weather information, aerial navigation relied on the same tried and true marine navigation techniques from an earlier time. Aerial charts, celestial observation, and dead reckoning skills needed to be honed to a fine edge for the pilots to hit their destination on the mark. This, too, changed with the advent of radio beacons and radio direction finding equipment, long range radio navigation systems, and early satellites. These later evolved into today’s extremely accurate global positioning system (GPS). The Coast Guard cutters also provided a mid-flight reference point for transiting planes.
One part of transoceanic flying that hasn’t changed is the risk of ditching beyond the range of search and rescue (SAR) forces. A third part of the Coast Guard’s ocean weather station duties was to assist aircraft in the case of ditching.
Nineteen of the 21 ditchings in which the plane landed in one piece took place in the open ocean. In all but two instances they were too far from immediate help, resulting in casualties from hypothermia or drowning. The two successful ditchings occurred within a half mile of Coast Guard cutters that were manning one of the weather stations.
For over 36 years there was a special relationship between airline crews and the Coast Guardsmen on ocean station. As each plane passed overhead a member of the flight crew radioed all pertinent information regarding the flight to the cutter. Often the stewardesses were the ones who handled this duty. The sound of a woman’s voice was a welcome change to the men in the midst of a long patrol.
Within this special relationship, two went even deeper. The most special was forged by USCGC Bibb and a Boeing 314 flying boat named Bermuda Sky Queen. The other one was between USCGC Pontchartrain and a Pan American Airways Boeing 377 christened Sovereign of the Skies.
These two wonderful tales encompass many facets of ditchings: bad weather, engine failure, horrific sea conditions, and indomitable courage in the face of death. In addition to these two are stories of other ditchings as well as the journey we humans have undertaken from the beginning of transoceanic flight to today.
Now ladies and gentlemen, in preparation for take-off, please make sure your seat belt is securely fastened, turn off all electronic devices, sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.
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