Pilots survive night on Hudson Strait ice sheet Two pilots spent 18 hours floating on an ice sheet after their aircraft suffered twin engine failure on a flight from the US to Sweden, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Australian Oliver Edwards-Neil, 25, and Sweded Troels Hansen, 45, ditched their Cessna Skymaster in the Hudson Strait, just south of the Arctic circle at …
You know, if I was stranded on a tiny ice sheet in -20c weather with no sign of imminent rescue, food and water would be the least of my concerns. "Here I am, at risk of drowning in frigid water, in the pitch black on big-ass ice cube... at least this would be OK if I had a Snapple and a bag of Doritos!"
"didn't have any survival gear, or rockets or flare guns because we didn't have time to get it out of the plane"
I don't know how the situation was, and don't really want to criticize the guys, but... Couldn't one of them have grabbed some stuff in the time between sending the SOS and crashing? A couple rockets/flare guns or whatnot? Or were two people actually needed to land the thing? (I don't think so, but have no real experience) No watch, FFS?
I know I've only done basic flight training, but when you've got an engine failure you've got your hands full. The only loose items you want in the plane are the doors, you open them so you can get out... Everything else sure as hell should be stowed otherwise it could take your head off. Between attempting to get the Mayday out, with the details of exactly where they are, trying to get the dammed engines started, and actually picking out someplace safe to touchdown... err ditch. You don't have time for... Hmmm is there a rocket in my pocket. The gear is there you know exactly where it is. You'll grab it when you can.
I for one think they were dammed fortunate, and well trained to have the "Gahh the plane sank awful fast Im glad im out of it." experience, and live to tell the tale.
Sounds like some real tough guys rescued some other real tough guys.
Edwards-Neil: Nobody was coming, so we decided to walk home.
That's the spirit.
Captain Bo: "They were crying and all that"
Sounds like it made him regret picking them up. The crying and hugging must have made him uncomfortable. "Geez, it was just an arctic plane crash"
To the commenter: "I wonder what the boat was doing that could be discarded so quickly"
Some people regard human life as more important than fishing. Do unto others and all that.
"You know, if I was stranded on a tiny ice sheet in -20c weather with no sign of imminent rescue, food and water would be the least of my concerns."
When you are cold, your body burns up energy to keep you warm and toxins are produced as a side-effect of this. The body needs water to flush the toxins out of your body in the form of urine. Put simply: the colder you are, the more water your body needs so it can produce urine which is a by-product of burning energy.
Here's an interesting experiment for you. Go for a walk on a very cold morning, the kind of morning when even with a coat, hat and gloves on you still feel very cold. Before you set out on the walk, go to the toilet to ensure your bladder is empty. After about 30 minutes of walking, your bladder will probably start to fill because your body is burning up a lot of energy to keep you warm.
As for the need for food... When you are very cold your body will burn up a muh greater amount of food than normal to keep you warm. I recall seeing a program about some people climbing up a famous mountain (possibly Mount Everest but I can't remember). If I remember correctly, one ingredient in their daily diet was a pound of butter because their bodies were burning up so much energy.
It was absolute madness to by flying in that area without having personal Emergency Locator Beacons attached to their survival suits. Even if the plane has an installed ELB, it wont be much use if the plane sinks. Decent personal ELBs with GPS, which can drastically reduce search times, are under $1000.
If anyone does have an ELB, make sure it's one which operates on 406MHz as 121.5MHz will no longer be monitored by satellite after 1st February 2009.
The tradition at sea is: if you can respond to a mayday, you do so without question or hesitation. Even racing vessels must respond to those is distress, the ISAF (was IYRU) fundamental rule 1.1. is:
"A boat or competitor shall give all possible help to any person or vessel in danger."
IIRC a round the world yacht scuppered it own race a few years back by responding to a competitor in distress.
As to the fishing boat, they probably hauled their nets in early/dropped marker buoys and headed for the pilots. Good on them.
Indeed. An unwritten law in the sea and in the desert is assisting your fellow man. Not only because its the right thing to do, it also sets precedents for you to receive help should you ever need it.
A variation on this is the rule that the captain of a sea ship and an airplane have absolute rule when on international waters/airspace.
It sort of makes sense when you think that you are traveling without assistance and in an unsafe environment, human rights are secondary to completing the journey properly.
If no one helped each other in the sea/desert, no one one would ever travel at all. l
@David Wiernicki:
The body uses a lot of energy trying to stay warm, so lack of sustenance would indeed make things worse.
I was once trapped somewhere cold and exposed for a couple of hours (not sub-zero cold, but it was windy and raining hard), and it was a considerable help that I had water and plenty of high-energy food.
Wimps. Fuc*king warm as toast. Here in Finland -40 is not unheard of. Don't try giving the missus a bit of 'How's yer Father" after nipping to the shop for a pack of Marlborough when you've experienced that!
Oh, yeah, doesn't that show all these piccies on the airline's safety cards of a plane floating on water to be utter bollocks??
(Mine's the orange flotation one)
Indeed.
An office worker in temperate climes will find 2000-2500kcal plenty.
Meanwhile a single 24h military arctic ration pack contains up to 6000kcal.
Also, in arctic conditions, "water discipline" is usually enforced. That is to say, soldiers are *ordered* to drink at frequent intervals, as they are unaware of their increased rate of respiration (in order to keep warm) which requires a corresponding increased input of water to avoid dehydration and degraded performance.
The survival time in the Arctic Ocean and Antarctic waters is reconned to be minutes about 5 if I rember my survival training correctly so it is not at all unusual for a SAR mission to be called of of there is no sign (of the plane in this case) found.No wreckage/Liferaft =No survivors.Period....
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