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Ditching accidents, life rafts, jackets and equipment, training and related discussion

Antonio wrote:

I guess that means your wife is mandatory equipment onboard for overwater flights :)

I keep her on MEL list

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Emir wrote:

My wife always carries a mirror

I guess that means your wife is mandatory equipment onboard for overwater flights :)

Antonio
LESB, Spain

SAR people once told me that a little mirror is surprisingly effective.

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

My wife always carries a mirror, so I don’t have to take care about it – it’s always on board

Last Edited by Emir at 14 Mar 20:58
LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Instead of a mirror, I carry a CD. It works as well as a mirror but is lighter. The hole in the middle is good to put as strong through for attaching to yourself or the raft. The edges are quite sharp and capable of cutting open plastic wrapping or cereal bar wrappers. Harder to break than a mirror.🙂

France

BTW, I also carry a mirror, perhaps during sunny daytime it is much brighter than a strobe light, operative word being “sunny” …

In the end one has to limit how much weight is carried because a heavy raft is difficult to manage in an emergency, so you cant carry one of everything…

My equipment+raft is 6+5 kgs with 2kgs taken by emergency water rations, and it all adds up quickly, so one has to prioritize. Maybe for specific flights the survival jacket carry-on method has to be considered, but now I am digressing…

Any positive experiences with flares?

Antonio
LESB, Spain

Thank you all

What if S&R is close but looking in another direction?

Yes, that is a bummer: one would hope they would look in all directions within a 20-sec period ? Especially when in the vicinity of the PLB coordinates, but if the latter fails this is a serious flaw of the flare logic during the daytime.

Will your hands be warm enough to be able to use the flare?

I just bought handwarmers to add to my kit: they are light and more important than they otherwise seem to be, especially in cold waters.

call up your local search and rescue and discuss it with them

Already spoke to them during a recent local demonstration of military equipment! There are three pieces of equipment they advised dearly: liferaft, PLB and PLB: they also advised to carry a PLB with oneself, all in that order. The issue is the PLB updates position every x minutes so, you may have drifted one or more km’s from the last transmitted position. Then a radio able to communicate on 121.5 is also useful. They carry on their aircraft a “rescue chain” with bigger, better equipment to deploy once they see the survivors. How they see you (we did not explicitly ask on flares, so need to bring it up to them) and how you get to it when in the water is a different matter, but there is a long floating rope linking them supposedly aiding that.

@Peter has clearly lost his trust in flares, and almost his foot with it too…

I don’t fly at night but an afternoon incident could easily mean a night rescue.

That is my logic: you have to be prepared to stay one night at sea, even if you only fly during the daytime.

GA_Pete wrote:

regular big sea crossings like Scotland to Norway

That is no place for a SEP. The key is “regular” vs “occasional”

And yes I am more worried about visibility during the daytime than night. A bright strobe should be good for night, but in the day? I’d rather be seen during the day and not wait till night time. Rescue resources are also bound to be more scarce at night.

Last Edited by Antonio at 14 Mar 17:01
Antonio
LESB, Spain

My plan, effective enough or not is to rely on the visibility of my raft coupled with my PLB.
At night a strong torch (high lumen LED) should help with the final phase.
I don’t fly at night but an afternoon incident could easily mean a night rescue.
Saves worrying about the safety and renewal of flares.
If I was doing regular big sea crossings like Scotland to Norway, I’d probably carry one each of everything from the safety catalogue!! But there comes a point where perhaps a well maintained twin with ample fuel is the best safety device.

United Kingdom

As I posted further back, I had some handheld flares which just gave out a bright light, and a parachute flare.

The former can easily be replaced with bright LED lights, and much more safely from the aircraft carriage POV.

The latter just blew up, with the innards narrowly missing my foot. The parachute part of it was very brief, because the chute didn’t open. It was just slightly out of date, but I would rate this as very poor. It was stored in a dry building.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Firstly, let me preface this with that fact that I have ZERO expertise in this area! Only opinion!

But my thoughts would be: –
Flare visible from further away, but only for a short while. What if S&R is close but looking in another direction? Do you let it off hoping to be seen or wait until they are more looking in your direction? With the strobe you can use it for much longer, but not be as visible.

Will your hands be warm enough to be able to use the flare? On some of my hiking and camping trips I’ve certainly faced the position where my hands were getting so cold that it was getting hard to make them do what I wanted them to do! You’re generally in hotter waters, so that might not be so much of an issue for you. But if you can’t operate the flare and aim it, when you need it, it might not be of so much use.

Personally I think I’d be inclined to call up your local search and rescue and discuss it with them. They will give you a much better insight into what they can detect easily with their equipment and systems. You might even get a tour of their facilities or invited along on a training mission if you’re really lucky!

EIWT Weston, Ireland
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