Mooney_Driver wrote:
We can easily sit here on our comfy chairs and judge others for what they have done, but how would we react in this situation?
Of course. But in the end the real heroes are always those who sacrifice themselves by avoiding the children’s playground (used to be common practice when the militaries were mostly flying single-engine jets) and not the ones who sacrifice others for the sake of saving themselves (captain (with a lowercase “c”) Schettino will serve many more years in prison because of that). It is a matter of mindset. We are not (ex-) military – at least most of us aren’t – but in this respect they all try to do the right thing and should be our role models.
172driver wrote:
This is a very real concern here in L.A., as the beaches are almost the only places to land on in an emergency (aside from some golf courses). However, in summer they are packed….. I would ditch close to shore. Might make a different call on a winter morning, though.
My early flight instructor told me “if I ever hear of you making a forced landing on a populated beach, and if you survive, it won’t benefit you because I will kill you” I haven’t forgotten that!
Fuji_Abound wrote:
To be fair if there are that few people on the beach the chances of hitting them are a little like the chances of hitting another aircraft and you probably have a pretty good chance of avoiding a few people and them avoiding you
True. I’m just reluctant to give criticism in such a dark situation until I’ve some idea if they chose to land on a crowded beach hoping everyone would get out of the way, or if they went for what they thought was a deserted beach and made a mistake.
dublinpilot wrote:
I’m just reluctant to give criticism …
Of course all criticism in cases like that is based on a lot of assumptions and incomplete information. But if it was as it looked like (and please don’t tell me that there are completely deserted beaches in Portugal in August!) then it must be allowed to say that every other option would have been better.
WN,
I don’t really disagree with you. My immediate reaction was “how could they attempt to go anywhere near a beach full of people!”. But then I stopped and thought “how was it that only 2 people were killed? Maybe this beach was much quieter and more remote than I’d pictured in my mind.”
In fact had i read the thread better with a high wing aircraft there is hope that if anyone was aware of the aircrafts approach and lay flat as might be a natural reaction they stand a good chance. Of course i appreciate with engine out you may never see or hear the approaching aircraft.
There’s one thing that strikes me here – the dislocated wing. If they just landed on the beach (which, by the accounts we have so far is what they did), then there is no reason the wing should break. I don’t think even hitting a person would lead to that. There’s an image here showing the accident a/c front-on and while not the entire wing is visible, the visible part does not show any impact damage. Could that have been an incipient in-flight breakup? I know these are exceedingly rare, but if so, they wouldn’t have much choice as to where to land. In any case, a very sad outcome and food for thought.
One thing I’ve found it easy to lose sight of is quite how fast you’re going in an aircraft at touchdown. A C152 lands at 54 knots over the fence, which would be breaking the speed limit on a main road, but when you’re aiming for a sparse expanse of tarmac (or beach) it certainly doesn’t feel like it. I can see how landing on a clear spot of a beach might feel reasonable… until the ground rushes up to meet you and everything starts to happen quickly.
Silvaire is correct and googling finds quite a number of recent beach forced landings where people have been killed.
Obviously you don’t want to land too near people at all, but a beach with a few swimmers in the water would be a better bet as you will come to a stop very quickly, rather than taking the length of a few football fields to stop.
It’s something I often think about as I fly over some Welsh beaches where there are no other good options. Probably fewer people about than in Lisbon. Plan A is to fly parallel to the water’s edge, and divert to land in the water if it’s looking too risky as I get low.
An awful, awful tragedy.
tmo wrote:
One of the problems with really autonomous vehicles – be it cars or drones – is who makes that call and who, if anyone, gets persecuted later, and for what?
The problems with autonomous vehicles is much more down to earth than that. Read the other day that they had real problems detecting bicyclists. This they solved, so the cars didn’t drive into them. However, as soon as the bicyclists discovered the cars would stop for them, they immediately took advantage of it, cycling as the cars weren’t there at all. An autonomous car don’t get angry and irrational like a person, and this ends up in a situation were pedestrians and bicyclists have no respect for them. Traffic in city centers and so on will halt altogether.
I think whether you land on the beach or in the water just offshore and ditch you stand a good chance of walking away. In Portugal in August there is no chance this was a deserted beach as the media reports suggest. You have to go for the water in my opinion unless that is impossible due to glide range or similar. I agree with W_N that you cant take out innocent people if you have any alternative.
