Deadstick landing over water

[CChris]

Hello fellow Mooney pilots,

I am a new M20C owner based in South Florida and flying to the Bahamas is on my bucket list. In case of an engine failure over the big lake, logic tells me that a gear-up water landing is the way to go, preferably close enough to a boat.

This emergency mental exercise got me thinking of two questions, for which I was not able to find answers here on MS or elsewhere:
a. What is the likelihood of a safe water landing in a Mooney and how well does it float?
b. In case I am flying inland, say over a lake, the intercoastal waterway or a slow moving river - would the odds favor a water landing, or should I mainly try for a straight road (which might have heavy traffic), a beach (which might be full with people) or a field (which might be rough or undeveloped)?

Appreciate your thoughts and comments.
Safe flying!

[midlifeflyer]

Not Mooney specific, but you want to watch Paul Bertarelli's discussion of emergency ditching vs other options. 

 

[toto]

Paul Bertorelli had a nice short video on this a little while back.

 

 

[toto]

2 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

Not Mooney specific, but you want to watch Paul Bertarelli's discussion of emergency ditching vs other options. 

 

 

Wow, at first I thought we posted exactly the same video at exactly the same time

Close enough anyway..

 

[kortopates]

To my knowledge, everyone involved has survived gear up water landings in Mooney’s. Some have even made a long swim to shore. If you sit on the horizontal elevator in the water, it will help to keep it afloat as long as possible.
But wear your life vest in the cockpit with any automatic inflator disabled.
Also suggest carrying a water proof PLB.
You can rent 4-person raft for Bahamas trips in south FL.

As for where to put it down, remember altitude is your friend in giving you the most options and time. But if going for a beach, I would opt for just offshore if the beach wasn’t deserted - not doing so has resulted in fatalities of innocents.


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[CChris]

Great content and insights. Thanks for sharing!

[midlifeflyer]

1 hour ago, toto said:

 

Wow, at first I thought we posted exactly the same video at exactly the same time

Close enough anyway..

 

You posted an earlier one, which is linked in the later one dealing with the stats. Both are good.

[rbp]

And if you have to land in the open water, land into the wind at 11 o'clock or 1 o'clock position in front of a boat. Motor is preferred but sailors  are better at man overboard maneuvers

also attach a scuba diver's dye marker to your vest. they will make you super easy to see even from a distance.

[GeeBee]

I've seen two Mooneys ditch one near Tampa, the other near Marathon, neither floated very long. In fact they sank almost immediately. As stated wear your PFD, get out and inflate it and your raft ASAP. The plane is going down quick.

http://www.equipped.com/196ditch.htm

[Vance Harral]

3 hours ago, CChris said:

In case of an engine failure over the big lake, logic tells me that a gear-up water landing is the way to go

There's a pervasive opinion that keeping the gear in the wells of an RG aircraft is a critical component of a safe ditching.  But the only serious analysis I've ever found suggests it probably doesn't matter, see "Myth 5" at http://www.equipped.com/ditchingmyths.htm  Note that this analysis doesn't involve the specific case of forgetting to raise the gear for a water landing in an amphib, which is a totally different subject, but sometimes trotted out when people insist you'll immediately flip upside down with the gear out.

If this assertion doesn't pass your common sense test, think a moment about the geometries.  Imagine you're ditching in your 35' wingspan Mooney (17.5' per side) with its 5.5 degree dihedral.  The height of the wingtip over the water in a perfectly level touchdown on glass-smooth surface is only tan(5.5) * 17.5 = 1.7 feet.  That's not much clearance.  It's well within the range of normal beach waves, boat wakes, or blue-water swells.  Throw in even a degree or two of bank past level at touchdown, and I'd say it's very likely you're going to catch a wingtip if you ditch gear up.  So in practice, the gear up/down decision is the choice between sticking the gear legs in the drink first, vs. sticking a wingtip first.  Neither of those is appealing.  Both could easily result in rapid submerging. and they're probably in the same range of risk.  Proponents of the "keep the gear up" strategy seem to assume you'll slide the belly smoothly into the water, perhaps after skipping a couple of times like a flat stone.  But I think that's extremely unlikely in practice, and therefore a bad assumption to plan on.

Anyway, not trying to convince people one way or the other about their strategy, just giving some information that doesn't seem to get into the debate very often.

[SKI]

I flew to the Bahamas in January. I was in my Cherokee so not much help on gear up or down, It wasn't much of a concern to me. I will add a few things though. Besides inflatable PFD and a locator beacon which are more obvious, Take some sort of automatic center punch/ window breaking tool. I'd hate to survive the landing only to be trapped in the plane and drown. Second to that same train of thought is something to cut your seat belts. Again ya never know!! There's a lot of different tools for that, I'm a sailor also so I had something I keep on my PFD for that use. Lastly enjoy it!!! I was on Andros for 8 days and Long Island for 5 days. Mostly fly fishing and just generally screwing off while it was cold in PA. Actually made a few Bahamian friends on Andros and I'm heading back down in end of May/Early June for another few weeks. The people on the out islands are crazy friendly. Like 95% of the people driving past you walking will beep and wave. Be cool to them and their super cool back. My friends on Andros even said there's areas on Nassau and Grand Bahama they avoid. Just something to be mindful of if heading to the more populated islands. There's area there that aren't quite as safe and low key.

[RoundTwo]

I used to fly my Cherokee 140 from Stuart to Walker’s Cay regularly in the late 80’s before we had all these fancy engine monitors and such. Once you got over “over water rough, it’s just like any other 1 hour flight. Now, I was young, dumb and half broke, so that meant no life raft, just PFDs from the boat. I always had a great time and there’s nothing like that clear Bahamian water.

Do it and have a great time!

[C.J.]

I'd strongly discourage you from ditching in calm wind conditions on any body of water given you had any reasonable alternative available to you. "Glassy water" landings are best left to those with floatplane training AND with engine power available. Depth perception over mirror-like water is zero. The 2 mostly likely end results will be flying into the water without flaring or grossly misjudging height and stalling it in. I've done dozens of glassys since getting my float rating in 2003 and it still startles me when the heels of the floats touchdown when visually it seemed as if I was 30 feet in the air. As for flying to the Bahamas, do it with about 15kts of surface winds so they'll be waves for depth perception and don't inflate your PFD until you are out of the aircraft.

[toto]

Flying to the Bahamas is a near-term wishlist item for me too - this place seems to be a popular outfitter for the short journey, and they have some helpful YouTube videos too. Fwiw. 

https://www.banyanpilotshop.com/fly-your-airplane-to-the-bahamas/

 

I haven’t had much concern about rescue from ditching. As long as you get out of the plane, the water should be warm and there’s a ton of boat traffic in the area. I think there’s even a ferry that runs from Miami a couple times a day. I carry an InReach which might help, but I suspect that if you’ve got a raft and you’re on the water you wouldn’t have to wait long for rescue. 

[toto]

7 hours ago, midlifeflyer said:

You posted an earlier one, which is linked in the later one dealing with the stats. Both are good.

Yeah - the one I posted was the one I immediately thought of, but I like them both. Bertorelli is based in Florida and probably thinks about ditching more than I do in the Midwest

 

[midlifeflyer]

7 hours ago, toto said:

Yeah - the one I posted was the one I immediately thought of, but I like them both. Bertorelli is based in Florida and probably thinks about ditching more than I do in the Midwest

 

There are a number of common low altitude coastal routes. That low altitude route along the east coast of Florida below the approach departure paths for FLL and MIA is one.  I did it with a friend. Another I flew  is along the south shore of Long Island enroute to or from the Hudson River corridor. Keeping it on Mooney topic, both in Ovations. 

I assume a bunch on the west coast too.

[jlunseth]

My favorite place to rent vests and life raft is APP Jet at Ft. Pierce. I am sure there are others. Reserve before going though, they get lots of traffic and you can’t just show up and expect a vest will be waiting for you. My recollection from several trips over is that vests are required, rafts are not, but it’s a good idea to rent a raft. I think it is a Bahamian requirement, not US, but not sure about that. I just get them. One piece of advice if going to the Bahamas, practice your strong crosswind landings. The islands are all oriented perpendicular to the prevailing wind off the ocean and they are long and narrow so there is only one way to build a runway. Lots of good info in the Vacations forum, but always check the latest regs and rules, especially customs. Things are always changing in the Bahamas. A Spare Air if you are a diver and know what that is, is a smart addition for the pilot who has to wait for the passenger to get out the only door. 

[JimB]

My wife and I did the Bahamas last April. We have inflatable life jackets and a PLB but I didn't rent a raft. With all of the boat traffic between Florida and the islands, I probably wouldn't have time to inflate before being picked up...

[A64Pilot]

PLB is fine, but I’d suggest an EPIRB. Why, because an EPIRB is designed for water, it auto activates in water, floats in the correct position for the antenna to work and has both a bigger battery so it transmits for much longer and most have a strobe light. Ft Pierce is the place to both leave from and return, CBP is right next to the Tiki bar where the rafts are rented and you can eat of course, and the CBP people are nice there.

EPIRB will work great over land too of course just it has to be turned on so it’s not just a water thing.

Carry cash, many places with fuel won’t take cards and sometimes especially on the family islands the internet goes down and if it does the cash machines won’t work and cards won’t either. Everywhere I’ve seen takes US money, but you may get Bahamian currency for change

I spent Winters on our sailboat for years knocking around the bahamas, there are just a few routes 90% or more boats cross at, my favorite was from West Palm to West End on the Grand Bahamas island, glassy water happens on the banks rarely, but not really on the Ocean. So if you follow the boat routes there will honestly usually be a string of boats visible. Most smart boaters won’t cross with a North wind because the gulfstream stacks up against the wind and you get serious steep close together waves, so if you can don’t go in a North wind. You certainly don’t want to have to ditch in the sea conditions a North wind causes in the stream.

How long an airplane will float has a lot to do with how much fuel is in the tanks, if full 60 gls of fuel is about 8.5 lbs lighter per gl than sea water, so only 150 lbs of buoyancy. But empty it’s over 500 lbs of buoyancy.

In the Winter there are serious “Northers” which are just fronts of course, but you get wind speeds in excess of 40 kts that can last a couple of days, Wind initially comes out of the West then over a day or so moves until it’s out of the North, so if you go in Winter carry some serious tie downs and gust locks, Family islands may not have tie downs and certainly not good ropes. There is not much on the islands to block the wind so same front in Fl is nothing, but in the Bahamas it’s strong.

File IFR if you can as of course you’re in positive contact, night flight is IFR only. Yes the wind does blow, usually almost always from the East and strongest in the afternoons, early mornings are usually calm, it’s the trade winds and they are very predictable.

I STRONGLY recommend the family islands, that’s the old Bahamas, very friendly people and nearly zero crime, Nassau and Freeport is where the crime is, and Cruise ships etc and it’s not really the Bahamas, it exists for tourists. Most of the crime in the Bahamas isn’t from Bahamians, but from Haitian immigrants.

Only Prison is Fox prison in Nassau, if in the rare chance a criminal is from a family island, once released they aren’t allowed back, so more criminals are in Nassau

https://bs.usembassy.gov/security-alert-u-s-embassy-nassau-the-bahamas/

[A64Pilot]

Oh, and of course if your going down, open the door before landing, Ideally open it and while open close the latch

[rbp]

15 hours ago, RoundTwo said:

before we had all these fancy engine monitors and such. Once you got over “over water rough, it’s just like any other 1 hour flight.

if you've never heard of it, there's something called "lake effect," which is when you are over water and finally out of gliding distance, you will start to notice every unusual noise and every engine indicator will start to vibrate

[jlunseth]

aka the autoroughs. 

[wombat]

I very much had that flying over the Idaho mountains at night in IMC.   Every time I turned my head, the noise cancelling headset would change pitch just a tiny bit.   So I'd then whip my head over the other way, which changed it again and even more.

My solution is that I'll take a different route that costs me 30 minutes extra, but keeps me within gliding distance of I-90 or I-84, and/or daytime and/or VFR.

[Mooney in Oz]

On 4/21/2023 at 11:58 PM, A64Pilot said:

Oh, and of course if your going down, open the door before landing, Ideally open it and while open close the latch

A mother (the pilot) and her teenage son did this only last week when a Cherokee Archer she was flying suffered an engine failure over a beach off Western Australia. The pilot elected to land close to the beach due to the numbers of people on the beach. Both mother and son survived with no injuries.

The event was captured on video. It is amazing how fast it came to a stop.

I know this does not involve a Mooney, but….

[exM20K]

9 hours ago, Mooney in Oz said:

It is amazing how fast it came to a stop.

Great find.  It really is a long deceleration.  Maybe 3 seconds?  That’s about 1G from 60 Knots, though the deceleration is not evenly spread across the time. Nice job by the pilot to get it stopped and everyone for getting out.

https://rechneronline.de/g-acceleration/
the calculator is on a German domain, so it must be very precise!

-dan