With all this talk about tracking devices (SPOT/Delorme), PLBs, survival vests and emergency gear; this is a good reminder that someday it may be needed.

A teenage girl (McKenzie Morgan) on her solo long cross country crashes in remote WY.

This will stop and make you think.... are you prepared?

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/dateline ... ld-n188591

(Also, I can't help but think about member ShysDad when watching this.)

I am prepared to turn around before it's too late - yes.

Apparently "well prepared" didn't include a lesson on cardinal direction or how to read a compass.

I flew my father-in-law from Afton to Meeteetse yesterday to look at his sheep hunting area, and we stopped in Cody for fuel. That is some very very inhospitable terrain, but absolutely beautiful. I very likely flew right over where she went down, as we were over the wood and greybull rivers outside of Kirwin, we also saw five grizzly.

That's an amazing story. The odds of her being found were pretty slim. Pretty cool that she jumped back in the saddle!

I'd say that someone does have a plan for her.

Good story, thanks for sharing

Thanks for posting it, Matt. Pretty amazing.

I don't think it's fair to criticize the girl, though. Most of us here have been flying for a long time, and the idea at our levels of experience that we'd forget to set a DG before taking off, or not be able to read a bouncing compass to set it in flight (or not think to do that), or misread the terrain, or mis-set a GPS, or just plain get lost, is pretty foreign. But try to recall what skills you had or didn't have when you were on your first solo cross country.

On my own first solo cross country, my instructor wanted me to do the first leg to Kenai by pilotage, the second leg to Homer by VORs, and my last leg, from Homer to Anchorage, strictly by ded reckoning, so after leaving Homer I'd turned off the radio (not too bright, but I was a student, remember?). Everything was going very well, and I was having a marvelous time in the little out-of-rig 150, until I had to dodge around a storm. I had been following my course very accurately (I cheated and looked at the chart, too), and I was really scared that I'd not be able to get on course again, because I didn't really know what I was doing. But after awhile after passing around the storm, I found where I was, and I was able to get back on the course I'd plotted, and golly I was relieved! When my instructor asked how the flight went, I rattled on and on about having to divert around the storm and successfully getting back on course.

Today, that little diversion would be nothing, obviously. Then it was serious. It's not hard to understand why the girl got lost.

I have no doubt that there's a reason that this young girl survived, and a reason that the hunters were right there where she crashed. Why that happened, only God knows, but I think He has plans for her.

Cary

Very few primary student pilots are prepared to deal with a mistake like that. It sounds like she kept flying the plane until the last minute. The flight schools where I live just say stay away from the mountains. I have found that when I make a mistake, the next decisions that I must make need to be unusually good ones to keep things from deteriorating. She was very fortunate for the situations that conspired to keep her alive. It seems to me that a Cessna 172/182 is a pretty good plane to be in if you need to ball it up.

Cary wrote:I have no doubt that there's a reason that this young girl survived, and a reason that the hunters were right there where she crashed. Why that happened, only God knows, but I think He has plans for her.
Cary

Agree 100%

Bender wrote:Apparently "well prepared" didn't include a lesson on cardinal direction or how to read a compass.

Agree, Cary, that we sometimes forget how easy it was to mess up the simple things. Trying to put ourselves in her place: You're thinking you need to fly a course of 025. Next thing you're taking off from runway 25 and immediately distracted by the lack of visibility in the smoke. Yep, there's the river I'm supposed to follow and I'm right on the course I was supposed to be on. You don't even have to be dyslexic for this to momentarily make sense. That's the problem with being a noob, too much stuff overwhelming our attention and not enough reserve brain capacity to be thinking ahead and reanalyzing the situation to recognize our mistakes.
Looking at the terrain in the area of the pass - If she had continued downstream on foot after the crash, as opposed to just up and over the pass, she would have been walking for a hell of a long time on a swollen knee...

At some point she could have turned out of the box canyon, but probably questioned if there was enough room for that. I always find it surprising how tight of a turn a Plane like this can make. If you don't familiarize yourself with this capability, you would probably be scared to try it in a canyon that has three times the width necessary to turn around. I highly encourage all to develop the feel for what kind of maneuvering space is necessary to execute a 180 degree turn for situations like this.

Cool story and pretty well put together. I admire that she finished her license and kept flying. It's hard to be too critical on the girl, given her amount of experience. It was impressive that she put the airplane down on that rock slope and walked away. Kudos to her and the Cessna Aircraft Co.!

I don't think it's hard to be critical of this girl at all. SHE CRASHED A PERFECTLY GOOD PLANE INTO A MOUNTAIN!!!

Everyone makes mistakes but we have to have redundancy built into every plan. The bottom line is that this girl was 100 percent reliant on her GPS. She had no other means of navigating. No way, even when she began to question her position, to figure out where she was at and which way to go. Looking down and saying there's a river on the ground and here's a river on my map that must be the one, is unacceptable from any student that is up for a solo. Not recognizing that home is north and I'm traveling south is unacceptable from any student at any level. The instructor that signed her off, even though she may look like just a harmless little old lady, should lose her instructor's license for negligence. Furthermore, the instructor has the nerve post accident to say that her student was well prepared. Unbelievable.

Bender wrote:I don't think it's hard to be critical of this girl at all. SHE CRASHED A PERFECTLY GOOD PLANE INTO A MOUNTAIN!!!

Everyone makes mistakes but we have to have redundancy built into every plan. The bottom line is that this girl was 100 percent reliant on her GPS. She had no other means of navigating. No way, even when she began to question her position, to figure out where she was at and which way to go. Looking down and saying there's a river on the ground and here's a river on my map that must be the one, is unacceptable from any student that is up for a solo. Not recognizing that home is north and I'm traveling south is unacceptable from any student at any level. The instructor that signed her off, even though she may look like just a harmless little old lady, should lose her instructor's license for negligence. Furthermore, the instructor has the nerve post accident to say that her student was well prepared. Unbelievable.

I gotta agree with Bender here. If I couldn't figure out which direction I was travelling, and how to find my position on a map, there is no way that I'd have been signed off for my solo cross country.

I was always told to believe my instruments with the stress on the plural of instrument.

I guess I am just a Luddite, but I have never considered a cell phone a flight instrument.

I am absolutely amazed that the student was cut loose for a solo cross country in that terrain and environment so completely un prepared for a survival situation. Unbelievable. The tv show made it out to sound as if there was no warm coat, no food provisions, no signaling devise, no survival gear, no nothing! Just some simple items would have increased her chances for survival and rescue had the hunters not been there.

Now, I am basing this on what I saw on the tv show and if I am wrong then I sincerely apologize to her instructor but if I am not, shame on her instructor, purely negligent on her instructors part.

This student was very lucky. Glad to see she is "back on the horse", hopefully some one like MTV can give her some valuable guidance on simple preparedness since it looks as if she was lacking in this area previously.

Be prepared!

G44

As Kurt says, who knows how accurate any television program actually portrays an incident.

That said, she apparently had a GPS onboard. Did she not even look at the thing as she headed 180 degrees out? Not even when she realized things didn't look right? I know, trying to fly that leg DR. Really?

She was fortunate in the crash, and it looks like she must have got it slowed down....good job there. Busted plane but no major injuries.

According to the narrative, no survival gear......REALLY??? That calls for a HOLY SHIT! All that country can be cold and unforgiving.

Was the airplane equipped with an ELT? Why didn't she crawl in there and retrieve it instead of trying to make a radio call in an airplane with the antennas busted off? Was it a 406?

Now, she smells gas, so decides to walk out? Wasn't she told by a hundred people that you should always stay with the wreck, except under exceptional circumstances? And, a good smoky fire is a great signaling device, as well.

This is one fortunate young lady, no doubt. Thank God that cowboy had the grit and courage to go after her and save her life. He's no doubt the hero in this story.

We all make mistakes, even me . And a young aspiring pilot can easily make errors that more experienced pilots might not.....maybe they might not.

It's possible that her flight instructor needs to reconsider her preparation of a solo student. Survival gear, it's location and use, ELT location and function, always wearing or at least carrying with you clothing adequate to survive in the country over which you're flying, and always staying with the wreck unless there are compelling reasons not to are all things that every flight instructor should drill into every student from the beginning of their training.

Then again, after a pretty traumatic landing, the young pilot may have been rattled enough that she panicked and forgot some important lessons. Her goodbye to parents video suggests that may have been the case.

I'm glad this worked out, and I'm glad this young lady decided to continue flying.

There are things we can all learn from such events.......and happily this one offered it's lessons without loss of life.

Thank God we've got folks like that cowboy in this country as well. Nice to know there are folks out there who'll go a tough trail to help.

MTV

Bender wrote:I don't think it's hard to be critical of this girl at all. SHE CRASHED A PERFECTLY GOOD PLANE INTO A MOUNTAIN!!!

Everyone makes mistakes but we have to have redundancy built into every plan. The bottom line is that this girl was 100 percent reliant on her GPS. She had no other means of navigating. No way, even when she began to question her position, to figure out where she was at and which way to go. Looking down and saying there's a river on the ground and here's a river on my map that must be the one, is unacceptable from any student that is up for a solo. Not recognizing that home is north and I'm traveling south is unacceptable from any student at any level. The instructor that signed her off, even though she may look like just a harmless little old lady, should lose her instructor's license for negligence. Furthermore, the instructor has the nerve post accident to say that her student was well prepared. Unbelievable.

Criticism that is constructive seems reasonable here, but a little empathy is also in order. People will always find holes in the systems in place to make things safe. She made a mistake, and the bad decisions cascaded on her. Things happen more quickly than we can process some times. Things like this are bound to happen to everyone at some point, but experience is what enables us to make better decisions for recovery once things have gone sideways. She simply did not have enough experience or presence of mind to recover from a series of bad decisions. She is very fortunate to have another chance to build upon her experience. She will most likely never make this mistake again.

Agreed on all counts Mike, but I still remember my first solo cross country, and I made a similar mistake and end up flying for 15 minutes 90degrees from my intended heading out into no-mans land. Yes, when you've only 40 hrs under your belt, you do make these kinds of serious mistakes and I'm quite sure that my instructor didn't send me out with ANY survival gear on that flight either.

I don't consider myself terribly experienced now even at 330 hrs, but I fly the same routes routinely now without even a glance at my maps and only use them and my GPS if I venture further as I can fly that former solo X-country route nearly blind now. SO, when you are at that level of experience it is a whole different ball of whacks then what it is for most of us now.

This girl will develop better situational awareness (hopefully), and good on her for hoping back into the seat.

Hopefully (and we don't know that she didn't), the instructor will better equip her students for these flights. Survival gear always accompanies me because being on floats I am frequenting places that don't get frequented often. I don't fly in Alaska, or the mountains of Wyoming either, but lakes in eastern Manitoba and Northwest Ontario can be just about as remote.

Fly safe folks, and thanks OP for sharing this story.

I'm not gonna criticize the lack of recognition on the young girls part (I left one of my gas caps on the tarmac on my first x-country). Seems like there was some mistakes made, and some poor decision (but the devil is in the details) and luckily she lived to learn from it. Hope her instructor learns as well. I know my instructor was pretty straight to the point about flying prepared. I remember when I was taking lessons in the little citabria, and it had heel brakes. At first I had problems with it, so I went out and bought some fancy driving shoes, flat sole, and low profile so was almost like not wearing a shoe, I could really feel the pedals better. I showed up the first time and my instructor said "what are those your wresting shoes from high school?" I went on to tell him how these shoes where driving shoes.. blah blah. He just kind of chuckled and said something about ok for pattern work and I kind of blew it off as the grumpy instructor syndrome. Fast forward a few months and I show up to do my cross-country, I had my backpack with water, food, firestarter, first aid kit, extra radio, etc. and I was ready to go! My instructor looks down at my feet and said "those wresting shoes were ok for pattern work, but if you go down in that plane and need to walk out you are going be in big trouble with those things" and he actually sent me home to change my shoes! Man was I pissed... but now appreciate the lesson.