Although David has not spoken to me about this it sounds like I am the
person to which he is referring. He will be pleased to know that these days
I make do with 2 engines in my work. However I am still
very much of the opinion (as is SEMS the survival equipment company) that
survival suits are well worth the investment.
This was reinforced recently
when I talked to another professional pilot who had actually ditched in the
English channel only 2 miles from the Isle of Wight. This event happened in
October, one of the warmest months of the year for water temperature in the
channel. He had a lifejacket and a dinghy. The aircraft sank in two minutes
and the regularly serviced liferaft failed to inflate. Luckily for him the
D&D cell got a secondary radar fix on him although he was below 2000ft due
to a restricted cloudbase (fairly common over the English Channel). The
helicopter by chance was already airborne and found him in only 35 minutes
using their thermal imaging camera. In that short time he was suffering
badly from hypothermia and had to remain in hospital for two days to
recover. He was told that he was very lucky as another 15 to 20 minutes
would have been enough to kill him. As the CAA ditching leaflet says,
ditching is a rare occurrence but although 85% survive the ditching itself
only 50% of those survive the subsequent hypothermia.
I don't intend to compromise my safety (and that of my passenger) just to
encourage a nervous flyer. In any event I assume
that David will be briefing his passenger on ditching before embarking on
cross channel flights. As shown by many
accidents careful prebriefing is important to improve one's chances in the
unlikely event.
A nervous passenger may be put off just by being asked to wear a lifejacket
so is this going to be dispensed with as well?
This was never intended to be a discussion topic As far as I am concerned I
just want to take simple precautions and don't have any criticisms if others
wish to do differently. Each to their own.
Nigel Charles
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