Actually wearing a lifejacket for overwater flying

[PilotDAR]

In this thread: viewtopic.php?f=118&t=91156 (Beaver Crash) We had quite a discussion about actually wearing lifejackets while flying overwater. I'm pretty opinionated about this, believing that wearing your lifejacket is a must do for minimum appropriate safey during overwater flying.

A recent news report says in part, the following:

"The pilot and his two passengers died of hypothermia.

The CBC has learned only the pilot was wearing a full Arctic immersion suit and it was not completely zipped up.

Two of the men were found without life jackets, and the third was not properly inflated."

I do not seek to open a discussion on the specific sad event reported, or cast a negative image on the people involved. This is bigger picture. But, I believe that the fact that these three men were not effectively wearing lifejackets when they hit the water will be a focus point.

Knowing that this sad event will be thoroughly investigated as workplace deaths, and the use of life jackets and immersion suits will well discussed, I will watch the outcome with great interest.

When I fly over water, I wear my life jacket. When I fly over cold water, I wear my immersion suit. I can envision this going from good practice to required, at least as a workplace practice, before too long, just as seatbelt use. I think we're overdue for some more safety related thinking on lifejacket and immersion suit use. I can remember years go walking to a restaurant in Parry Sound, wearing my immersion suit, because I had flown in a 180 floatplane in November, and actually hearing rude remarks about my wearing the suit! It's time for that king of thinking to end....

[CpnCrunch]

I was just flying over the georgia strait today and wore a lifejacket, even though we were pretty much always within gliding distance of land the whole time.

Here's the deal: it takes literally 5-10 seconds to put it on, and you never notice it the entire time you are flying (mustang horseshoe aviation type). I really don't understand the reluctance. A lot of pilots don't strap into their harnesses either, according to the accident reports.

[frozen solid]

I do all my overwater flying in a multi-engine seaplane. I've read all the arguments and I'm just not ever going to wear a lifejacket in the cockpit. I don't wear one when I'm a passenger on a jet flying over the ocean either. I consider the chance in both cases of wishing I had worn one to be remote in the extreme.

I've edited this three times now so I don't come across as sarcastic, I'm sorry but some guys are worried about other things. This life-jacket thing seems to be your thing, and I'm glad you've found something that makes you feel safer, but it doesn't have anything to do with the things I am busy neurotically worrying about. This "safety culture" thing has gone way beyond the boundaries of common sense and good taste, and is getting stupid. Wear one of those things if you want, but leave me out of it. I'm busy concentrating on the safety problems that I perceive, and that ain't one of them.

I might have a bad attitude, I admit I am also one of those guys who doesn't feel scared and vulnerable if I happen to find myself without one of those orange vests on the airside of an airport. I am glad they are around to make other people more comfortable though. I wonder when we are going to be able to stop piling on the gear we need to feel safe, when we are wearing helmets (those would have come in handy in lots of crashes I know of), and we have corks on the ends of our pens so we don't get impaled (at least one person I know of would have benefitted from this). I can also think of a couple of dead guys I know that would still be alive if a giant spring had been welded to the nose of their aircraft, and another who would have survived if he had been wearing a parachute. And A LOT of people would still be alive today if the floats and wings of their planes had been filled with ping-pong balls instead of just empty space. I'm not kidding. Personally I have a lucky rubber frog that I carry around. It's worked so far.

[RatherBeFlying]

In Canadian waters, the immersion suit (if zipped up) will keep you alive. Just a lifejacket on makes it easier for searchers to find your body. 12 kids and a teacher died in Lake Temiskaming with properly fastened TC approved horsecollar lifejackets.

[NeverBlue]

...any Italian whose mother is still alive wears a life jacket just walking on the damn beach!

I've never seen one drown yet...

[Schooner69A]

"I've edited this three times now so I don't come across as sarcastic, I'm sorry but some guys are worried about other things"

I don't think anyone would criticize you for not donning flotation gear during an overwater flight in a twin-engine fixed-wing aircraft. I know that I never did when I was so engaged. However, for those folks flogging single-engine aircraft on any of our three coasts, it might be a prudent thing to do. After all, your passengers will be some p*ssed if they make it safely to shore after an unscheduled water upset and there's no captain to direct their subsequent survival prospects because he drowned whilst trying to wiggle into whatever was to keep him afloat. (;>0)

In addition, it also depends upon your comfort level whilst engaging in overwater flight. A member of a former flight department thought nothing of low-level helicopter flight over the Bay of Fundy because he had a few years experience flying off shore in India. I, on the other hand, would hear strange aircraft noises from the time I left gliding distance until I regained it. Even with pop-out floats.

John

[Panama Jack]

In Canadian waters, the immersion suit (if zipped up) will keep you alive. Just a lifejacket on makes it easier for searchers to find your body. 12 kids and a teacher died in Lake Temiskaming with properly fastened TC approved horsecollar lifejackets.

Agreed.

For some reason people seem to think that Straight of Georgia waters are warm. I wonder how long you have if you go into the drink for a ferry or tugboat to pick you up alive?

Even In California the ocean waters are chilly.

[photofly]

While doing immersion training, it was pretty clear to me that it takes about 3 seconds to put a life jacket over your head - the airline emergency type. And if inflated there it will remain in place and keep your head out of the water and roll you right-side-up, even without the waist strap fastened.

We even practised putting the life jacket on over full clothing when already in the water. Granted the water wasn't cold, but even for someone who is not a strong swimmer (me) there was no difficulty in doing this. (Climbing into a life raft was another story, that was actually a huge struggle.)

So where is the difficulty in putting a lifejacket around your neck using a spare couple of seconds in the cabin, after an emergency situation becomes apparent? What am I missing?

[Heliian]

That's right, even in warm water you can succumb to hypothermia if exposed long enough. Of all the commercial operators i've been with, life jackets were mandatory for over water flights and drysuits up north.

These safety devices for crew are no good jammed under the seat or in the baggage compartment and If you think you have enough time to don one during an emergency, you are sadly mistaken. Sure, in a pool you can do it but after your machine has impacted the water and is sinking and you are possibly injured, there is no time, many pilots have thought they would have time and were wrong.

I completely disagree with frozen solid, donning the vest is not something to worry about, it's part of the uniform, same thing with high vis clothing at an airport. Frozen man, you are coming off as a 100 year old cowboy, this isn't about "feeling" safe, it's about statistically improving your chances of survival when the shit hits.

[PilotDAR]

I agree that sometime there is not time once the emergency begins. You can be totally consumed by the emergency. When you hit the water, you're going out the exit, what's on you is going with you, what's not, probably won't IF you think to reach and grab a lifejacket, there's a good chance you'll drop it on the way out, particularly if you're injured.

The report from which I drew my comments was a multi engined aircraft, but that did not seem to prevent it's crashing into the water. It had pop out floats, which do not appear to have been deployed, which I take to mean that hitting the water came as a surprise.

I don't think the higher altitude overflight of water is where most of the risk is, I thinks it's operations on, or very close to the surface. I think that the regulation of airlines thinks this too, as seatbelts are only required in lower altitude phases of flight. Yes, if you have a five minute glide, you do have time to get organized for the crash, but it does not seem that those are the phases of flight where the drownings are happening.

When I took my 9 year old daughter flying for dinner last night, we walked into town carrying our life jackets, because we'd worn them on the walk from the plane on the dock (which was rather long and narrow in places, when you had to step around the duck poop). I expect her to wear hers, so how can I not wear mine?

Hi vis vests? I do not require their use at my aerodrome, but other places it is wise. I darn near clipped a guy walking the white line the other night, dressed completely in black. On the Fire Department we always wear hi vis when working along the road. I would agree though, than during daylight, it does seem less vital in some airport environments. But, what's the harm in doing it!

I remember once taxiing an aircraft without the intention to fly, and thus not having my seatbelt on. I was motioned to takeoff immediately, and I did, and felt completely naked until I got the seatbelt on. Same thing with life jacket near the water....

[AirFrame]

So where is the difficulty in putting a lifejacket around your neck using a spare couple of seconds in the cabin, after an emergency situation becomes apparent? What am I missing?

The shoulder harness will be over your seat belt, which means you'll have to disentangle them after splashdown.

I wear a mustang vest, which is like a scarf with a waist belt to keep it in place. It goes on in seconds, and fits nicely over clothes and under the seat belts. Crossing he Straight of Georgia at 2500 there won't be "a spare couple of seconds" to put one on.

And before anyone asks why someone would cross a body of water at 2500', you try getting clearance to fly higher on a sunny weekend when half of the controller staff have called in "sick" due to longstanding labour disputes... :/

[frozen solid]

OK well, this is what "forums" are for, discussion about different points of view, and you guys don't like my ping-pong balls idea. Just so we're clear though, we've established that a) We should wear a life vest any time we are within 15 meters of any body of water, or flying above it; b) The straights of Georgia are too cold to really survive long even with your life-jacket; and c) you need to have your full-immersion suit zipped up at all times in order for it to work. OK.

...so it follows, then, that you gentlemen are taking the position that we will soon see, at companies like Harbour Air, for example, pilots AND passengers being required to don not only lifejackets but full-immersion survival suits for a trip to Victoria or the Islands? No, I'm not mocking you. This is what they do on offshore helicopters after all. We've established you won't survive long in the straights or around the gulf islands. I can attest to that myself, I've gone swimming there many times and it's always taken a good day before I can detect any signs of my external genitalia afterward.

I'm just wondering, without trying to sound rhetorical, (but it's so difficult) because at the end of the day I am a herd animal and tend to do what everybody else is doing, how will we know when we've become completely safe? As a 100-year-old cowboy, I survived the "wild west" period where I rode a bike without a helmet, built tree-forts without fall-restraint training, walked to and from my plane, at least in broad daylight, without a blaze-orange smock to keep me safe, (I do in fact see the need for one at night believe it or not) and flew a float plane (!) without wearing a life-jacket. When will we know we are completely safe? I can already see that: a) full-immersion suits are even safer than just a life-jacket in an aircraft; b) Orange pants and an orange hat will make us even more visible and safe than simply a vest. c) Wearing a helmet in ANY aircraft makes a lot of sense for the same reason as a life-jacket. d) Filling an aircraft's unused empty space with ping-pong balls would make it virtually unsinkable in the first place.

So you guys, flying around with ONLY a life-jacket, NOT wearing a helmet, ONLY wearing an orange vest, NOT having any ping-pong balls in your floats, are only being a LITTLE less cowboy-ey than I am!

I guess this is what I'm annoyed about, not you pilots in particular mind, is "safety" people in general getting on a soap-box about total, absolute full-time safety at any cost, then making only token gestures as a nod to their high-minded ideals, and THEN getting all sanctimonious about it. I think a lot of this is just a case of "the emperor's new clothes". Hi-ho Silver!

[Colonel Sanders]

why someone would cross a body of water at 2500', you try getting clearance to fly higher on a sunny weekend when half of the controller staff have called in "sick" due to longstanding labour disputes

I guess I have a "bad attitude" because I am a grumpy
old guy, but I think what you are saying is that this is
a safety issue.

What I would do in your shoes, when ATC is trying to
f__k you into doing something unsafe, is to climb up
into their precious airspace with no clearance, and the
mode C cranked on ALT.

When the prima donnas shriek at you, tell them that
you have a phone number for them to call after you
land, and are they ready to copy?

TC Enforcement will harrumph and piss and moan at you.

Tell them to lay the charge, and go to the Tribunal,
admit guilt for your transgression, point out that it
was a safety issue and that the CARs were being
used to enforce a teamster agenda, and that you
suggest an appropriate penalty of ONE F__KING PENNY
for your technical contravention.

I guess I have the old-fashioned idea that as PIC
you shouldn't let non-flying people on the ground
push you into doing something stupid and dangerous
merely because it is convenient for them.

If something goes wrong, who's going to get the
blame? Certainly not all the non-flying people on
the ground who were ordering you around. They
want authority and no responsibility, and when you
separate the two, you get a Monty Python skit.

[ahramin]

Funnily enough Colonel, that's what we used to do. And for a while it worked. "Don't want me in your airspace talking to you? How about in your airspace NOT talking to you?". The controllers like it because it showed the managers that ignoring staffing concerns had repercussions on them, not just on faceless private pilots.

Sadly it's been going on for so long that everyone seems to have accepted it.

[Big Pistons Forever]

A better way to deal with the overwater flights where ATC won't let you climb is when your request to climb is denied,is to say "for the tape, I check that as a direct result of NAVCANADA refusing to provide its mandated service I am now forced to fly so low I will be unable to glide to land". Note the date and time then when you land follow it up with a complaint at service@navcanada.ca.

As part of the Navcanada charter they are required to report complaints to TC. If enough people complain it will be harder and harder for Navcanada to duck their responsibilities.

Don't get mad at the controller the problem almost certainly is not with him/her it is with the chronic understaffing NAVCANADA uses as a means to save money.

As for the lifejacket issue, wearing a lifejacket without taking an egress training course removes most of the safety advantage as around 50 percent of the fatalities in water crashes are for people who survived the impact but drowned before they got out of the aircraft.

I think there is now enough hard data to show that having the egress course and wearing a lifejacket significantly improves your survival chances for water accidents.

[The Mole]

The same NavCanada employees might point out, that in bad weather these same float planes will fly on the deck and use the infinite runway concept to fly in horrible weather.

[photofly]

I agree that sometime there is not time once the emergency begins. You can be totally consumed by the emergency.

It's not like you have to spend a lot of time looking for the best field to land in.

I foresee many dangers with ditching, but making a survivable landing on water and then forgetting my life vest - is not among them.

[CpnCrunch]

I foresee many dangers with ditching, but making a survivable landing on water and then forgetting my life vest - is not among them.

How are you going to find your lifevest - never mind put it on - when you're upside down in a plane that is rapidly filling with water?

Or let's say for sake of argument you think you can put it on while descending to the water - how are you going to do that harnessed in? You really think you'll have time to unharness yourself, put on your lifevest, and put the harness back on?

[AirFrame]

I guess I have a "bad attitude" because I am a grumpy old guy, but I think what you are saying is that this is a safety issue.

Pretty much, yep.

I will say that this has been *less* of a problem since I started flying a fast homebuilt. I'm not sure why.

What I would do in your shoes ... is to climb up into their precious airspace with no clearance, and the mode C cranked on ALT.

I love the anarchy in this solution. On a clear day (when i'll have great visibility for other traffic) I may try it.

A better way to deal with the overwater flights where ATC won't let you climb is when your request to climb is denied,is to say "for the tape, I check that as a direct result of NAVCANADA refusing to provide its mandated service I am now forced to fly so low I will be unable to glide to land".

I'll have to print that little paragraph out and stick it to my kneeboard for the next time.

[photofly]

I foresee many dangers with ditching, but making a survivable landing on water and then forgetting my life vest - is not among them.

How are you going to find your lifevest - never mind put it on - when you're upside down in a plane that is rapidly filling with water?

Egress training included being able to extract the life jacket from its known place in the aircraft, and take it with while exiting, as well as putting it on while in the water. As I said, it's far from the most difficult part of the exercise.

Or let's say for sake of argument you think you can put it on while descending to the water - how are you going to do that harnessed in? You really think you'll have time to unharness yourself, put on your lifevest, and put the harness back on?

No need to unharness. Egress training made it abundantly clear that just having the thing around your neck is sufficient, if not ideal, which takes all of four seconds. Two more to tuck it under your shoulder strap. 10 more seconds any you can do the waist fastenings too. There's not many scenarios I can imagine where I don't have 20 seconds on the way down, best descent rate power-off is fewer than 500' per minute.

I write with the benefit of having tried it, if only in training.

[AirFrame]

There's not many scenarios I can imagine where I don't have 20 seconds on the way down, best descent rate power-off is fewer than 500' per minute.

Not very imaginative. What's your descent rate after a birdstrike? Or a midair? I do agree that if the engine just quits, that there is likely time to squeeze a lifejacket in under my straps... But when it only takes 5 seconds to put it on before you take off, and it's not a burden to wear, why would you actively choose to take 20 seconds out of your emergency time?

Maybe a better, more likely scenario: Engine quits on takeoff from Victoria, from one of the runways where your departure is immediately over water. You may only have 20 seconds *total* before water contact. Do you waste it putting on a lifejacket, or do you take the time to try a relight?

I write with the benefit of having tried it, if only in training.

I admit I keep thinking egress training would be a fun course, with the amount of water I fly across, but I haven't taken one. Being an above average swimmer will help in a ditching, but only if I get out and away from the aircraft.

[ahramin]

I wear my inflatable life jacket for every flight that has any over water segment. Doesn't cost anything.

However for those harping that everyone should be doing it, what is more dangerous: flying over water with your life jacket under your seat, or flying over water without underwater egress training?

[PilotDAR]

I remember a scene from the movie Bullett, where Steve McQueen and the other guy are in the midst of the car chase, and things are getting tense. Obviously, being experienced car chasers, they just knew instinctively the point in the chase when the danger had risen to a level which justified seatbelts, and the movie shot specifically showed them putting them on. Are lifejackets like that? You just know when the danger has risen to then point where now you need the proper protective gear, but you're not yet at the point where things are two risky to put it on?

I am convinced, that for any operation within 500 feet of the water, there is not enough time to suddenly recognize the impending need for a lifejacket, and put it on properly. During wreck recovery, I have swum inside inverted floatplanes, and its a whole different world in there - things are not where you put them. The people I listen to say that when you leave, only stuff attached to you is going out with you. Then I think about the person who got out injured, or unable to help them self, can another person help them easily by just pulling the toggle to inflate? If they have no lifejacket, they're not getting one now!

Three well trained arctic fliers did not survive immersion recently. They were aboard a professionally operated multi engine aircraft when it crashed into the water. Though it was equipped with emergency floatation, it was not used. Though the crew were issued emergency equipment, it was not effective. It is certain that that aircraft was flying higher that would be the case were it landing or taking off from the water, and still three trained crew entered the water with inadequate survival gear in effect. I think there is a strong message for the rest of us there. I expect to see that message repeated in an accident report one day....

[photofly]

But when it only takes 5 seconds to put it on before you take off, and it's not a burden to wear, why would you actively choose to take 20 seconds out of your emergency time?

It is a burden to wear. The emergency ones chafe horribly against the neck and they're not designed to be folded up and put away dozens of times.

I don't like and don't want one of the boating ones.

Maybe a better, more likely scenario: Engine quits on takeoff from Victoria, from one of the runways where your departure is immediately over water. You may only have 20 seconds *total* before water contact. Do you waste it putting on a lifejacket, or do you take the time to try a relight?

Here in Toronto I take off over water 7 to 8 times a day. The only thing I would "try" is to get the nose down and make a controlled contact with the water. That's why I trained to exit the aircraft taking the life jacket with me and to be able to don it in the water.

I can't tell you anything other than what I trained to do in an emergency. Like I said, I've been through the simulations, which is worth more to me than other people's opinions of what is and isn't possible, especially those who've not tried it.

[Heliian]

Our #1 choice of vests is Switlik. They are designed for daily wear in a/c and some even have pockets for more stuff. Forget that crap you buy at bass pro for fishing.