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> I understand landing on a small road would be possible in a plane like this, but since he's over mountains (3rd disclaimer, I don't know this area) - is it li

> I understand landing on a small road would be possible in a plane like this, but since he's over mountains (3rd disclaimer, I don't know this area) - is it likely there would be roads available to him? Comments in the article point out several viable landing spots are visible in the video including a (seemingly huge) dry river bed you can see just after the 5 minute mark. I'm not a pilot (working on it) but my understanding is that most crash landing fatalities occur when the plane clips something like a fence or a power line because they couldn't see it on the approach or they miscalculated the glide angle. This causes the plane to suddenly pitch down and fall like a rock but the stall speed for a 1940s Taylorcraft is around 40 mph so as long as the pilot avoids obstacles, they can touch down and quickly dump enough kinetic energy so that the final impact is more like a slow speed auto collision on a residential street (minus airbags). The plane will be totaled, but the pilot will probably survive. It's even possible to land up a hill [1] but that area is relatively rocky so I don't know how safe that would be Edit: Forgot to add, with 40mph stall speed you only really need about a football field worth of space to safely land without totaling the plane, with a decent safety margin to boot. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvKdfa8CoBw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvKdfa8CoBw

bjornsing 5y ago
I’d say it’s understandable though that he prefers to jump. The risk of personal injury is probably much lower that way. Still many reasons to doubt that there even was an engine failure, but that’s a separate question.
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  I'm not a pilot so I have no clue what is or isn't understandable. But based upon what other pilots are saying, it appears to not be a reasonable reaction in this case. Beyond that, if you're flying an airplane, I think you have some responsibility to not jump out at the first sign of trouble.
  - userbinator 5y ago
    Beyond that, if you're flying an airplane, I think you have some responsibility to not jump out at the first sign of trouble. As the saying goes, "The captain goes down with the ship."
  - bjornsing 5y ago
    > Beyond that, if you're flying an airplane, I think you have some responsibility to not jump out at the first sign of trouble. I agree, and in the video it looks like he abandons ship very quickly. But there could be a section of video edited out. EDIT: It doesn’t help his moral case that he’s carrying a selfie stick though, and is filming himself as his plane is potentially landing on someone.
- theli0nheart 5y ago
  Licensed private pilot here. Absolutely not understandable at all. Planes are natural gliders. The only reason to jump out of a plane is if you have 0 chance of landing it safely. Unless you have no other recourse, land the plane. I don’t know if all pilots are trained to do this, but my instructor literally turned off the engine multiple times during training and had me land without power. Whoever made this video did it for show; incredibly irresponsible.
  - bjornsing 5y ago
    I’m not a licensed pilot, so I’m just arguing from my intuitive understanding of the risks involved. > The only reason to jump out of a plane is if you have 0 chance of landing it safely. I understand that’s the responsible professional attitude. But if it was me in that plane and I saw a 10% risk of serious bodily harm / death in trying to land and a 0.1% risk in jumping, it would be tempting to jump. As I understand it the landing attempt here would probably be on a dry river bed or a dirt road. That’s not the same thing as turning back to an airfield. There’s serious risk involved.
    - akiselev 5y ago
      > I’m not a licensed pilot, so I’m just arguing from my intuitive understanding of the risks involved. > But if it was me in that plane and I saw a 10% risk of serious bodily harm / death in trying to land and a 0.1% risk in jumping, it would be tempting to jump. I think your intuition is wildly off base w.r.t. the risks of general aviation and sky diving. If you exclude experimental aircraft like fighter jets and kit builds, general aviation isn't much more dangerous than riding a motorcycle. The leading causes of death are misjudging the weather and miscalculating fuel because most of a pilot's training isn't in how to fly a plane but how to troubleshoot it midair or land safely if that is impossible. An unplanned skydive in a mountainous area in Southern California during Santa Ana season? Now, that's risky. (Edit) For perspective, Nevada sky diving companies won't even jump over Black rock desert because of the wind and that's a desert so big and flat that it's used for amateur rocketry in the 100k+ feet range.
      - 5y ago
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  That may be perspective from outside but not I think for actual pilots. I have not finished my flight training yet but already I've had enough prep to be way way way more comfortable gliding a controllable predictable metal cocoon designed to protect me, over parachuting :O. I think for all but experienced pros, parachute is a guaranteed personal injury. Movies are way way off when it comes to ability of a random person to safely parachute even in most controlled situation.
spitfire 5y ago
I thought you were going to post Steve Henry's stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zDo7hkmCNY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zDo7hkmCNY There's a great clip of him parallel parking a tail dragger at some fly in on the side of a mountain somewhere in his videos.
andrepew 5y ago
For engine failures turning in to fatalities, the biggest cause are stalls/spins where the pilot fails to maintain airspeed, unload the wings and stay coordinated. Flying the aircraft just above stall speed into the side of a barn is far more survivable than entering a stall or spin at 200ft. Pilots panic and yank back the yoke in denial that they're going down. Or they try to “stretch the glide” in hopes of making it back to an airport. Or if the engine failure is on take-off, they don’t shove the nose down fast enough (you literally have seconds to do so before airspeed gets dangerously low)
- akiselev 5y ago
  I'm talking about crash landings in general. It doesn't matter what caused the emergency landing, what makes them dangerous isn't crashing into something at the end, but snagging an obstacle right before touchdown that sends the plane cockpit first into the ground. Power lines don't care about the state of the power plant.

bjornsing 5y ago

I’d say it’s understandable though that he prefers to jump. The risk of personal injury is probably much lower that way. Still many reasons to doubt that there even was an engine failure, but that’s a separate question.

bcrosby95 5y ago
I'm not a pilot so I have no clue what is or isn't understandable. But based upon what other pilots are saying, it appears to not be a reasonable reaction in this case. Beyond that, if you're flying an airplane, I think you have some responsibility to not jump out at the first sign of trouble.
- userbinator 5y ago
  Beyond that, if you're flying an airplane, I think you have some responsibility to not jump out at the first sign of trouble. As the saying goes, "The captain goes down with the ship."
- bjornsing 5y ago
  > Beyond that, if you're flying an airplane, I think you have some responsibility to not jump out at the first sign of trouble. I agree, and in the video it looks like he abandons ship very quickly. But there could be a section of video edited out. EDIT: It doesn’t help his moral case that he’s carrying a selfie stick though, and is filming himself as his plane is potentially landing on someone.
theli0nheart 5y ago
Licensed private pilot here. Absolutely not understandable at all. Planes are natural gliders. The only reason to jump out of a plane is if you have 0 chance of landing it safely. Unless you have no other recourse, land the plane. I don’t know if all pilots are trained to do this, but my instructor literally turned off the engine multiple times during training and had me land without power. Whoever made this video did it for show; incredibly irresponsible.
- bjornsing 5y ago
  I’m not a licensed pilot, so I’m just arguing from my intuitive understanding of the risks involved. > The only reason to jump out of a plane is if you have 0 chance of landing it safely. I understand that’s the responsible professional attitude. But if it was me in that plane and I saw a 10% risk of serious bodily harm / death in trying to land and a 0.1% risk in jumping, it would be tempting to jump. As I understand it the landing attempt here would probably be on a dry river bed or a dirt road. That’s not the same thing as turning back to an airfield. There’s serious risk involved.
  - akiselev 5y ago
    > I’m not a licensed pilot, so I’m just arguing from my intuitive understanding of the risks involved. > But if it was me in that plane and I saw a 10% risk of serious bodily harm / death in trying to land and a 0.1% risk in jumping, it would be tempting to jump. I think your intuition is wildly off base w.r.t. the risks of general aviation and sky diving. If you exclude experimental aircraft like fighter jets and kit builds, general aviation isn't much more dangerous than riding a motorcycle. The leading causes of death are misjudging the weather and miscalculating fuel because most of a pilot's training isn't in how to fly a plane but how to troubleshoot it midair or land safely if that is impossible. An unplanned skydive in a mountainous area in Southern California during Santa Ana season? Now, that's risky. (Edit) For perspective, Nevada sky diving companies won't even jump over Black rock desert because of the wind and that's a desert so big and flat that it's used for amateur rocketry in the 100k+ feet range.
    - 5y ago
NikolaNovak 5y ago
That may be perspective from outside but not I think for actual pilots. I have not finished my flight training yet but already I've had enough prep to be way way way more comfortable gliding a controllable predictable metal cocoon designed to protect me, over parachuting :O. I think for all but experienced pros, parachute is a guaranteed personal injury. Movies are way way off when it comes to ability of a random person to safely parachute even in most controlled situation.

spitfire 5y ago

I thought you were going to post Steve Henry's stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zDo7hkmCNY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zDo7hkmCNY There's a great clip of him parallel parking a tail dragger at some fly in on the side of a mountain somewhere in his videos.

andrepew 5y ago

For engine failures turning in to fatalities, the biggest cause are stalls/spins where the pilot fails to maintain airspeed, unload the wings and stay coordinated. Flying the aircraft just above stall speed into the side of a barn is far more survivable than entering a stall or spin at 200ft. Pilots panic and yank back the yoke in denial that they're going down. Or they try to “stretch the glide” in hopes of making it back to an airport. Or if the engine failure is on take-off, they don’t shove the nose down fast enough (you literally have seconds to do so before airspeed gets dangerously low)

akiselev 5y ago
I'm talking about crash landings in general. It doesn't matter what caused the emergency landing, what makes them dangerous isn't crashing into something at the end, but snagging an obstacle right before touchdown that sends the plane cockpit first into the ground. Power lines don't care about the state of the power plant.