Plane goes down in Lake Michigan

[John Pleisse]

A life raft can buy time and make you more visible in cold water. And for purposes of this discussion, I would submit "cold" being anything under 75 degrees. 60+ temps? Great for a summer swim and cooling off, not fighting for your life is 4 foot chop of 6 foot seas for many hours. Keep in mind, also, the second greastest risk of cold water exposure, next to hypothermia, is heart attack. Both eventually result in cardiac arrest,.

[WardHolbrook]

All of this discussion about rafts is interesting and essential knowledge, but bottom line is that flying over open water was not necessary for that pilot to get to OSH. Again, the bottom line is to always leave yourself a viable out. Obviously it wasn't done in this case. 

[PTK]

Desperately sad. Very disappointing.

[Alan Fox]

Water tmeps are in the low 70s , Hypo didn't kill them.....

[chrisk]

Water tmeps are in the low 70s , Hypo didn't kill them.....

http://www.useakayak.org/references/hypothermia_table.html

[DaV8or]

The correct answer is to ALWAYS leave yourself a solid gold out. If you ever find yourself without one then you need to ask yourself the question why are you there? 

 

The only solid gold out I can think of is never leave the ground. Seriously, in a single engine airplane, there are a lot of airports I have been to where if you loose your engine at say 200', there really aren't any great options. It's just do your best and let the chips fall where they may. So if I limit my flying to just to and from airports with lots of wide open, flat spaces around them, I pretty much kill any real utility my plane might have.

 

At some point, you have to play the odds and take a risk. IMO, you should do your best to minimize the risk, but there if you go up in the air, there is always a risk. There is no solid gold out 100% of the time you're flying. There may be an out, but a lot of time it's just silver, or even tin.

 

Just me, but I don't fly over big open water, at night, hard IMC with low minimums, over extended mountain terrain, or forests. I just fly for fun. I don't have to be there. I can take a little longer.

[WardHolbrook]

I totally understand what you are saying and I agree with you. There will always be risks associated with any flight. The trick is to keep your exposure to those windows as brief as possible - the odds against a failure are indeed on your side. That guy did have a 100% golden out - he did not have to cut the corner and fly at low altitude out over the water. Nobody will ever know if whatever caused him to go down into the water would have been any easier to handle over land or not. But there are plenty of places where a successful off-airport landing could have been made.  

[aviatoreb]

My perspective on managing risk is not to work to zero risk, since that is impossible as mentioned here.  Zeroing risk means you don't take a  bath less you slip in the tub and get killed - happens more often than you would think!  So in that case why should we think we could bring the risk of flying to be less than taking a bath, or driving, or whatever else you are willing to do.

 

Managing risk for me means bringing it roughly in line with other activities I am willing to do.

 

Also it means not doing certain things that significantly raise the risk - yes like flying over areas with no out.  Like out of gliding range, over regions of low IMC (which is equivalent to flying over water since there is no out right? - even if it is VMC or higher IMC at your destination), and so forth.

[201er]

Managing risk for me means bringing it roughly in line with other activities I am willing to do.

 

Also it means not doing certain things that significantly raise the risk - yes like flying over areas with no out.  Like out of gliding range, over regions of low IMC (which is equivalent to flying over water since there is no out right? - even if it is VMC or higher IMC at your destination), and so forth.

Interesting point that I mostly agree with. However, I feel that the strongest risk management program to start with is to work on oneself as a pilot. Staying current, proficient, continuing flying education, learning from others, avoiding doing stupid things or being bold, etc should mitigate over 50% of the risks associated with flying. All the other ones (like IMC to low minimums) are very small and spread out thin. I know some of you feel immune to making stupid mistakes but those are the ones that are most likely to get you so I think that's the best thing to start with.

[aviatoreb]

Interesting point that I mostly agree with. However, I feel that the strongest risk management program to start with is to work on oneself as a pilot. Staying current, proficient, continuing flying education, learning from others, avoiding doing stupid things or being bold, etc should mitigate over 50% of the risks associated with flying. All the other ones (like IMC to low minimums) are very small and spread out thin. I know some of you feel immune to making stupid mistakes but those are the ones that are most likely to get you so I think that's the best thing to start with.

 

Absolutely I agree with your further comments 201er about mitigating risk by our own behaviors which I will summarize as - a significant training program to stay well current, and good aeronautical decision making meaning go/no go properly and don't do stupid things....no buzzing, aerobatics, over gross and so forth.

[PTK]

...Staying current, proficient, continuing flying education, learning from others, avoiding doing stupid things or being bold, etc should mitigate over 50% of the risks associated with flying...All the other ones (like IMC to low minimums) are very small and spread out thin.

Mike, please share your risk analysis. I'd be interested to know how you arrived at this conclusion.

You must have very detailed and elaborate statistics and risk management calculations...

[fantom]

Mike, please share your risk analysis. I'd be interested to know how you arrived at this conclusion.

You must have very detailed and elaborate statistics and risk manegement calculations...

 

The argumentative twit won't understand them, Mike, so ignore the obtuse dent.

[Hank]

Risk management calculations are not 'elaborate.' It is simply Chance of Occurrence times Severity of Potential Harm. Both are typically single digit numbers, no calculator required.

[aviatoreb]

Risk management calculations are not 'elaborate.' It is simply Chance of Occurrence times Severity of Potential Harm. Both are typically single digit numbers, no calculator required.

 

No, take it from me as a professional mathematician, it takes an advanced degree and a big brain to calculate these things properly.  After all, 47.3% of all statistics are well considered and true, but 69.8% of statistics are actually exaggerated.

 

:-)

 

I am sure that when Mike said "50%" he was speaking broadly as figuratively as when we say "half the time I can't remember where I lost my keys".

[Hank]

And here I thought 78.3% of all statistics were made up . . . .

[201er]

There are three types of mathematicians in this world: those who can count and those who can't.

[Hank]

There are three types of mathematicians in this world: those who can count and those who can't.

But you forgot physicist dentists! :-@

[bnicolette]

"they've done studies you know........60% of the time it works every time"

 

Courtesy of The Anchor Man

 

[aviatoreb]

And here I thought 78.3% of all statistics were made up . . . .

 

That is correct.  That does not contradict that 69.8% of statistics are actually exaggerated, since these sets are not mutually exclusive, since a statistic can be both made up and exaggerated.

 

 

.  

[aviatoreb]

There are three types of mathematicians in this world: those who can count and those who can't.

 

Hey, that's my line.  I usually tell that joke. 

[aviatoreb]

"they've done studies you know........60% of the time it works every time"

 

Courtesy of The Anchor Man

 

 

Hey, It made sense to me.

[Marauder]

Well, all math aside. Years ago I went through the agonizing process to classify the NTSB accidents associated with the F model. I calculated, using my slide rule, that if you maintained the airplane, put good gas in and cleaned the windshield periodically, 87% of all F model accidents were due to the idiot behind the yoke. And of the 14% (okay math has never been my strong suit), 33% of those might be classified as idiot related, but there was nothing to collaborate that the idiot indeed was the key factor in the outcome.

[aviatoreb]

Well, all math aside. Years ago I went through the agonizing process to classify the NTSB accidents associated with the F model. I calculated, using my slide rule, that if you maintained the airplane, put good gas in and cleaned the windshield periodically, 87% of all F model accidents were due to the idiot behind the yoke. And of the 14% (okay math has never been my strong suit), 33% of those might be classified as idiot related, but there was nothing to collaborate that the idiot indeed was the key factor in the outcome.

 

That is roughly my understanding of the situation.  Skip the stupid pilot tricks (VFR into IMC, fuel exhaustion, buzzing/aerobatics,....stall spins in the pattern at base to final turn) and you have cut out a huge fraction of the maladies.

[WardHolbrook]

One of the guys on the Red Board posted this link. It's good stuff...

 

http://www.slideshare.net/strappy57/ditching-water-survival-airventure

[wiguy]

 The news says these guys were found inside the plane. It seems they expired before any worries of cold water issues.