This guy walked (swam) away from this.

The front of the floats were bent up at about 20 degrees.

Not a graceful entry.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1026992707997/

Looked like a medical issue. Flew straight into water with no flare? Miracle he is alive.

I can't believe it did not flip!

G44 wrote:I can't believe it did not flip!

X2. Wonder how long it took to finally flip over. He hit at a pretty steep angle and I thought for sure it cartwheeled after the first hit, then I saw it sitting right side up. Wow.

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

TomD wrote:This guy walked (swam) away from this.

Hmm. As a SEL pilot, I know any landing that you can walk away from is a good landing.

BUT, how does that work out for seaplanes?!? Good landing if you can swim away, I guess.

Hard to see on my iPhone, but looked like the right wing and nose dropped prior to impact. Glassy water and stall from 20' up?
Aircraft is a Murphy Moose on ampibs, wheels were up.
Afterwards was tragic, lots of boats around but nobody thought to put a line around the front of the damaged floats that eventually filled with water and turtled the airplane. Then instead of an experienced nearby aircraft salvager they hired the three stooges with a crane and twisted off the tail taking it out of the water.

I think that says something about the construction of a Moose. I thought the plane would be folded in half after that impact.

Glad the pilot survived. I'd be curious to know the story from his/her perspective.

My plane is going onto amphibs Monday... definitely a sobering video to watch.

The picture of the tail makes me want to puke. See the nylon strap around the rear fuselage? Who could think that was a good idea? I've salvaged many airplanes. That reeks of impatience and/or incompetence.

Pinecone wrote:The picture of the tail makes me want to puke. See the nylon strap around the rear fuselage? Who could think that was a good idea? I've salvaged many airplanes. That reeks of impatience and/or incompetence.

Absolutely. Insurance companies don't speak seaplane recovery (and don't care), some guy "in charge" of the lake is wetting his pants to get this thing out of the water, so they grab the first guy they find with a crane, and the results are predictable.

That tail damage was totally preventable, and a good salvor would have brought the thing out virtually I damaged.

If you're ever in this kind of situation, yell WHOA! And find someone who knows what they're doing.

MTV

You might go so far as to have an emergency response plan prepared. Instead of going through your service manuals trying to figure out how your plane is intended to be rigged for lifting, do it now.

Write down a procedure for rigging and lifting it out of a tight spot, could be a ditch or forest, by either crane or helicopter.

How will the water be drained as it's lifted as it's lifted from a ditching?

How is it to be righted if it's upside down?

An hour spent now could make the difference between a repairable incident, or a writeoff.

Remember. You might not be able to be there to supervise.

Pinecone wrote:The picture of the tail makes me want to puke. See the nylon strap around the rear fuselage? Who could think that was a good idea? I've salvaged many airplanes. That reeks of impatience and/or incompetence.

You figure they lifted the whole aircraft by the tail causing the tail to be damaged like that? I thought maybe it was just a guide strap to stop the load tipping up and the damage was from the accident. Looking at it, it is twisted strange, surely no operator would lift from the tail like that though, aircraft salvage experience or not?

The "before" picture. As MTV says, don't get a boy to do a man's job. Here's an example of it being done right, by a salvager located only 30 miles away from this situation.
http://www.sealandaviation.com/salvage-0

The very first aircraft "recovery" damage I learned about was when I was just learning to fly during the winter of 72-73. We had a brand new 150 in the stable, with only ferry time on it from Wichita. My instructor and one of his students turned it topsy-turvy at Fort Richardson's Bryant AAF, landing at night. The strip had been only partially plowed, leaving berms on the runway, and although the student landed well within the runway lights, she landed right on top of one of the berms. The way my instructor described it, the airplane just gently nosed over, and because the snow was still soft, there was next to no damage.

But the "recovery" the next morning by the Elmendorf engineers did some horrendous damage, maybe not quite what the Comox seaplane suffered, but similar. A crane was used to lift the tail, and the crane operator lifted the airplane too high, the looped strap slipped, and the horizontal tail was crinkled along with the dorsal fin, but not the vertical tail. The tail spars had to be replaced, in addition to the sheet metal damage. This was back in the day when a sudden stoppage didn't mandate a tear-down, so at the other end, the prop was straightened and a new spinner was installed. I hadn't soloed yet, so I'm guessing that this was in mid-December, and it was March after I got my license that the airplane came back, all fixed. Yet I'd be willing to bet that had it been recovered properly by someone who knew what he was doing, it could have been flying the next week.

Cary

Karmutzen wrote:The "before" picture. As MTV says, don't get a boy to do a man's job. Here's an example of it being done right, by a salvager located only 30 miles away from this situation.
http://www.sealandaviation.com/salvage-0

Oh geez that does make me wanna puke now. That's unbelievable to me that someone would think to lift it like that experience or not. I can't imagine how far that damage would extend down the entire tail section.

Pinecone wrote:You might go so far as to have an emergency response plan prepared. Instead of going through your service manuals trying to figure out how your plane is intended to be rigged for lifting, do it now.

Write down a procedure for rigging and lifting it out of a tight spot, could be a ditch or forest, by either crane or helicopter.

How will the water be drained as it's lifted as it's lifted from a ditching?

How is it to be righted if it's upside down?

An hour spent now could make the difference between a repairable incident, or a writeoff.

Remember. You might not be able to be there to supervise.

This makes sense, but if my plane was upside down in a lake I don't want it back. I WANT it to be a writeoff and deposit the check from the insurance.

Mountain Doctor wrote:

Pinecone wrote:You might go so far as to have an emergency response plan prepared. Instead of going through your service manuals trying to figure out how your plane is intended to be rigged for lifting, do it now.

Write down a procedure for rigging and lifting it out of a tight spot, could be a ditch or forest, by either crane or helicopter.

How will the water be drained as it's lifted as it's lifted from a ditching?

How is it to be righted if it's upside down?

An hour spent now could make the difference between a repairable incident, or a writeoff.

Remember. You might not be able to be there to supervise.

This makes sense, but if my plane was upside down in a lake I don't want it back. I WANT it to be a writeoff and deposit the check from the insurance.

May be a matter of opinion. In a freshwater lake? I'd be more than willing to salvage, especially if it was a plane I built.

Saltwater? No way.

Came across this video this morning, reminded me of this thread. I think the new guy got stuck with the weekend callout!

Idiots! Reminds me of the morons at Sun & Fun years ago after tornado came thru, almost more damage done by the SNF crew and authorities "cleaning up" than the tornado itself.

This crane operator destroyed this airplane. Also, the total incompetence of the authorities is shameful.