June 2012
“Ditch kits” are part of good flight planning, risk management
Anyone who has spent any time at all flying around in small airplanes has looked down and realized the immense distances below where there doesn’t seem to be much of anything. No people, no roads, no structures and no sign at all of the touch of the human hand. Meanwhile, we trained as students and as competent pilots continue to imagine what it would take to safely land our craft away from an airport. In those imaginings, we always survive.
But, to use my favorite phrase, what if … there was no one around to congratulate us on our successful off-airport landing, and what if help—even if we were lucky and skillful enough to have avoided even slight injury—was hours away? What if night was falling, or rain; and there were spiders, or worse?
What should you have in your airplane—most, if not all of the time—just in case? Planning a recent flight at the comfort of my dining room table got me thinking about these things, as I hummed my emergency checklist to myself:
Airspeed—BEST GLIDE
Mixture—IDLE CUT OFF
Fuel—OFF
Master—OFF
Magnetos—OFF
Doors—UNLATCH
I had the occasion to plan the flight from my home airport in north central Florida for a trip to the Florida Keys. As I thought about timing and weather my examination of the direct route turned into a very long look at the sectional, then an even longer look using the Seamless Sectional capability of FlightGuide, then I fired up Google Earth and really looked.
What I came to realize is that a bit less than the last third of the three-hour journey would be over some of the least inhabited (at least, by humans) ground in the nation, some over mangrove-studded coastline, and finally a few minutes over the clear blue water north of Marathon Key.
The portion of the trip that got me thinking begins where my route would cross I-75 just west of Ochopee, then passes a few miles east of the Everglade Airport (X01) and continues—sometimes just offshore and sometimes over swampy mangrove-riddled land—across the corner of Everglades National Park. The farther south past X01 I would fly, the further from the everyday world I would be, in the unlikely event that I had to land somewhere other than on a runway.
Take a look at a map of Florida and examine that southwestern corner of the Sunshine State. Find Everglade City and its 2,400 x 60 airstrip. Interestingly, the hamlet was (in)famous for how many of its population of 500-some souls were involved in marijuana smuggling in the 1970s and ‘80s, aided by the dense mangroves and its remote location near the Ten Thousand Islands in Chokoloskee Bay on the mouth of the Barron River.
Continuing south there is nothing much human-made below until you across over Rabbit Key Basin en route to a landing at Marathon’s 5,008 x 100 runway (MTH).
I remember living in northwest Montana and east central Wyoming and learning a little about airplanes and mountains and wind. I also remember living in north central Wisconsin and learning about snow-covered runways, and how when the ice thawed the experienced local pilots would advise us single-engine drivers to go around the big lake because if you survived a water landing the hypothermia would get you before rescue could.
But no one ever said anything about snakes and alligators. And by snakes I don’t just mean the indigenous venomous variety.
So, as I’m planning the flight I’m thinking about what I’m flying over. Alligators—the American gator is the largest reptile in North America and can grow to 16 feet. Burmese pythons—these non-native snakes, which can reach 20 feet in length, have been breeding in the Everglades ever since a few got loose or were released by their owners. Some estimates say as many as 100,000 of the constrictors are down there, and they even eat alligators, among other things. Snakes—the venomous varieties in the ‘Glades are the eastern coral snake, the Florida cottonmouth/water moccasin, the dusky pygmy rattlesnake (responsible for more snakebites than any other in Florida because its rattle is so quiet) and the eastern diamondback rattlesnake. Other stuff—venomous spiders, deerflies whose bite hurts, lots and lots of mosquitoes and even something called poisonwood, which is related to poison sumacs and poison oak.
It all made me itch and think about whether I had any calamine lotion in the house.
Realistically, trouble aloft that would necessitate an off-airport landing is both rare and with luck and skill, survivable. According to the Flight Safety Foundation there were 1,764 General Aviation accidents in the United States in 2005; 127 of them were off-airport landings that began with an engine failure. That’s about 7 percent. The good news is that a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals that only 5.2 percent of forced landings result in pilot fatality. In 69 percent of the events there were no injuries at all.
But what about the few hours, or even a night that you’d be on your own until rescue? Or what if you had to find your way to civilization?
There are many commercially available survival kits marketed by aviation-related suppliers as well as wilderness and camping equipment companies. Some resources for further research are at the end of this column.
You can call it whatever you like—a bail-out bag, a ditch kit, or a survival kit—but consider that it is intended to sustain you and the normal complement aboard your aircraft for an unexpected overnight stay, and maybe for a full day or two. Therefore, you might need first-aid supplies, rescue signals, navigation tools (in case you need to hike out), some sort of shelter material, fire-starting items, and some food and especially water.
I opted for building my own kit because I’m sort of a gear junkie, and having worked as a volunteer firefighter, EMT and police detective, formed opinions about such endeavors.
Because we all fly in different geographies, you’ll want to build your kit for the places you usually aviate. A pilot stranded in northern climes late in the year may want extra warm clothing and high-calorie food, while one stuck in the southlands or desert areas in summer will want additional drinking water.
THE EMERGENCY-KIT LIST
I keep a bright-orange Pelican-type plastic waterproof and buoyant “ditch case” and a one-gallon water bottle behind the right seat in my 1967 Piper Cherokee where I hope they will be easy to grab if I need to quickly leave the aircraft.
Here’s what is currently in my ditch case. But I need to point out that it changes often as I come across things I like, or contemplate flights that differ in their potential for survival challenges:
A comprehensive first aid kit (unless you have a medical background, get a kit with good instructions in case what might happen exceeds your knowledge) with three days’ worth of my prescription medications, and painkillers prescribed for emergency purposes just in case.
Fire-making tools—waterproof matches, a piezoelectric butane lighter, tinder, and a firesteel. Insect repellent, sunscreen, high-energy food bars, straw-type water purifier, Mylar foil bivouac sack and space blanket, a large Swiss Army Knife and Leatherman Multi-Tool, duct tape, 25 feet of parachute cord, a small coil of wire, three small handheld signal flares, a small waterproof notepad, and an indelible-ink pen.
Optional things I toss in, depending on my flight plan: extra clothing, polypropylene pants, light windbreaker, a long-sleeved shirt, extra socks, crushable wide-brim hat, etc.
But don’t forget your flight bag. In mine are additional essential items that are not in the ditch case: my cell phone, a handheld radio and extra batteries, several flashlights, a small compass, a hunting knife, an emergency strobe, a signal mirror and my pistol.
About firearms and private aircraft: you are allowed to carry a firearm in your own airplane. At the airports you plan to use, be aware of “sterile areas” where firearm possession is prohibited. As long as you avoid such areas, your possession of a firearm on board your own aircraft is only subject to the laws of the state in which you are flying.
The most important tools for survival are your brain and your training. Flight plans—flight following if you are traveling VFR, and IFR flight plan if you are so rated—will help folks find you if they need to. Remembering to communicate via your radio if things go awry, remembering that your ELT has a manual activation switch, and that the transponder code for having an emergency is 7700 will go long way to get help coming your way.
Being prepared is part of being a good pilot, and thinking about what you might want to have at hand among the gators, snakes and skeeters is part of good planning and risk management. But don’t let what may be down below make you forget the essential ingredient of off-airport landings—fly the airplane until it stops.
David Hipschman is a private pilot and aircraft owner, a lapsed newspaper editor and retired police detective. He is the editor of Mentor, the National Association of Flight Instructors’ magazine, and teaches journalism at the University of Florida. He tells anyone who will listen that his habit of thinking “what if” has nothing to do with worrying. Send questions or comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
RESOURCES >>>>>
Adventure Survival Equipment/Lets Fly Alaska Aviation Survival Kit
adventuresurvivalequipment.com/lets-fly-alaska-aviation-survival-kit.html
Aeromedix
aeromedix.com/Survival_Gear
Aircraft Spruce Crashkits
aircraftspruce.com/catalog/pspages/crashkits.php
Aviation Survival Technologies
astoverwater.com
Best Glide Aviation Survival Kits, Equipment
bestglide.com
Equipped To Survive
equipped.org
Sporty’s Safety and Survival pages
sportys.com/PilotShop (Select “Safety and Survival” in the menu at the left of the page)
SurvivalAviation.com
survivalaviation.com
