This has been a tough couple of weeks for general aviation… Last week I blogged about the crash of a Glasair near Oxford, CT, now there is word of a tragic crash near Bimini, The Bahamas which took the lives of 3 persons from Naples Florida including J.P. Antonmattei, a prominent Naples businessman.
This crash too has struck a chord with me. I recently flew my plane down to the Bahamas this past December for a vacation. The flying in The Bahamas is just beautiful, but it poses unique dangers that require special consideration. Foremost is the obvious water danger. Life preservers are a must, a raft is a good idea, and for my trip, I bought a PLB (Personal Locator Beacon). A PLB sends a GPS position to a satellite when activated so that search and rescue can more accurately and rapidly locate you.
All this, of course, presupposes that you are able to survive the water impact, which unfortunately appears not to have been the case in this crash. Again, you can be a very experienced pilot, and even have life saving equipment with you, but if your machine is not operating properly, all bets are off because now, rather than dealing with a challenging enough emergency landing on land, your situation is compounded by a water emergency landing (or “ditching”)…. Notwithstanding Sully Sullenberger’s outstanding piloting accomplishment on the Hudsaon, a successful ditching is extremely demanding and remains a very dangerous “option” when a mechanical failure occurs over water.
It remains too early to know exactly what caused this tragic crash, but it is another sad reminder that flying over water poses unique considerations. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families…