Pair Survives Plane Crash at Sea On Way to Charity Mission in Haiti (From ABC News 1-10-12)
Cirrus CAPS parachute credited with another 2 saved lives. The chute deployed and they descended into the Atlantic Ocean. The airplane quickly began to fill with water.
What would YOU do? Get with your Cirrus CSIP instructor soon to practice emergency scenarios.
Fly safe,
Greg
(if you can’t see the video, use Chrome or FireFox. It doesn’t seem to load correctly in IE.)
The full story from ABC:
After surviving a harrowing plane crash off a sparsely populated Bahamas island – during which their lives were saved by the deployment of a giant parachute — a father and daughter from Alabama are continuing on with their medical mission to Haiti.
59-year-old Dr. Richard McGlaughlin and his 25-year-old daughter, Elaine McGlaughlin, departed from their home near Birmingham, Ala., on Saturday for a planned stop in Miami, before continuing on to Haiti.
Just one hour after the pair took off from Miami, however, trouble struck in their small plane.
The oil pressure plummeted, forcing Dr. McGlaughlin, the pilot, to send a distress signal to Coast Guard officials that their single-engine jet was going down.
Quickly coming to their aid were two Coast Guard lieutenants, who happened to be on a cargo mission nearby and raced to the plane’s location, just off the coast of Andros Island in the Bahamas. The Coast Guard also deployed a HC-144 Ocean Sentry fixed-wing aircraft from Miami to find the McGlaughlin’s airplane.
The oil pressure malfunction caused the plane’s single engine to seize up. After mayday calls, the father and daughter could only watch.
“The most frightening thing for me was seeing the propeller frozen, motionless, in front of a plane that’s in the air,” Elaine McGlaughlin said.
Dr. McGlaughlin deployed the plane’s parachute – standard on that model of Cirrus plane – which slowed descent to about 25 miles per hour.
“…We hit the water hard,” Dr. McGlaughlin said. “25 miles per hour is not an incidental collision. We pounded pretty good.”
Once the two hit the water, they faced the risk of drowning as the water in the plane rose around them.
“The plane filled up with water quickly, and that was sort of scary too because the doors are all closed but it just comes in the vents, and right away you are waist-deep,” said Dr. McGlaughlin.
The doctor and his daughter managed to make it out onto one of the plane’s wings, and then into an emergency inflatable raft stored on the plane.
Minutes later, an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter deployed from Clearwater by the Coast Guard began to circle overhead.
Video shot by the Coast Guard shows the tail and wing of their plane sticking up out of the water, along with the plane’s parachute that saved their lives.
Coast Guard officials were able to hoist the two up out of the water and safely into the helicopter, with no injuries reported.
The pair were then flown to Odyssey Airport in Nassau, Bahamas, where Dr. McGlaughlin’s passion for his work in Haiti, devastated by earthquake two years ago, became evident.
“Am I doing to do it again? As soon as I get another airplane. Yes, oh, yeah,” said the doctor.
McGlaughlin and his daughter departed at 8:30am Monday morning on a commercial flight to Haiti.
The Cirrus safety record could be better if pilots would do just one thing when unrecoverable trouble strikes – PULL THE CHUTE! 
Flying across the international border was a breeze. Enjoying a holiday weekend in a luxury oceanfront condo in Puerto Peñasco (Rocky Point) Mexico was fantastic. And knowing that private flights to Mexico are still ‘no problemo’ is good news for all GA pilots.
3. With Flight Service file IFR or DVFR (defense VFR flight plan) for your departure.
7. Arrive at your Mexican AOE (airport of entry). After landing, young military men with machine guns will greet you and inspect your airplane. There will be a lot of entry paperwork for your airplane and your passengers – immigration, customs, aircraft insurance verification, arrival flight plan, landing fee, etc. Plan on 30-60 minutes and $100 to clear in to the country (that’s for the airplane fees and two people immigration/customs fees). Be patient and respectful. Have lots of small bills. Dollars are OK, but they never have correct change and you are on the unfavorable side of the exchange rate. Some pilots bring pesos to minimize hassle.
2. Pay your exit fees, fuel bill, etc. and get a departure flight plan (the airport officer will fill it out for you, just like he filled out your arrival flight plan).
6. 50 miles out from Tijuana, approach can usually hear you at 8500′ or higher. The initial call to them is just like calling Norcal for flight following… who you are, where you are, what you want. They’ll get you on radar, confirm your border crossing squawk code (important), and tell you to fly direct to midfield over Tijuana (MMTJ) at 2000′. Later you’ll either get cleared straight-in to KSDM runway 26L/R or you’ll really need to cross MMTJ at 2000 and then descend into the KSDM traffic pattern. Either way is no problem.
Flying into the Las Vegas valley is an awesome experience. Many G.A. pilots choose North Las Vegas airport (KVGT), they have a great time in Vegas, and then fly home. Unfortunately, too large of a subset of these pilots screw up the instrument departure and find themselves in trouble with the FAA.
Bravo to the jury that did not allow this lawsuit to prevail. Based on everything I’ve read, this accident had nothing to do with the airplane (it was not defective in any way); rather it had everything to do with pilot error. The manufacturer isn’t responsible. Maybe this is the turning of the tide in lawsuits against airplane manufacturers?
