Lake Eyre Seaplane Incident
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- Опубліковано 4 вер 2021
- A small mistake that leads to a monumental disaster....Two seaplanes flying in outback Australia on strikes disaster Landing on Lake Eyre a dry lake. In sharing this I hope people can learn something from my adventure, I like to call an adventure not an accident as nobody was injured except my pride and wallet, as this happened several years ago the plane has now been repaired better than new. Hope you enjoy it.
Hi from the UK. What an epic story. The plane now looks really good. I'm glad you recovered the plane off the lake. well worth it. Thanks for sharing.
Glad you got your aircraft back flying again. I can imagine it would be difficult to tell how hard that surface would be unless you had tundra tires you had no hope of landing in those soft conditions.
I don't know what is wrong wih me but this video inspired me to buy a SeaRey. Thanks for posting David, I hope to meet you one day after I finish my kit. Great video thanks.
Lol 2:15
"Can you just stand by for a moment"
N E G A T I V E M A T E
So many lessons learned. Hope every Searey pilot watches. From a fun new challenge to being stranded without water and so many others.
A sad story, great to see it flying again, great video.
So many lessons! Thanks for sharing and congratulations on your persistence.
From another David here, I'm glad things finally turned out OK for you, even if after a 3 year ordeal. Rebuilding was a good time to make those improvements, and it was rewarding to see you finally get back into the sky. From USA, but never been to Bonneville Salt Flats, I think they have several feet of salt in them, which would make a good base for landing. And its really dry, not secretly hiding a mushy sandy bog like Lake Eyre. Just reading about the lake on Wikipedia, it will indeed have around 20 inches of salt on a truly dry lakebed, but every so often it does rain, and Lake Eyre is the lowest area in Australia, 30 to 49 feet below sea level, so when it rains in the north, the water makes its way to Lake Eyre.
Fortunate man, you were able to salvage your dream & restore it to full.
Thanks for posting. One heck of a story there. Glad it turned out ok and you had lots of help. Hope you have a long and fulfilling aviation hobby. I guess the take home message is always be sure of the landing surface and if you sling a plane out remove the fabric from the wings and/or use a drogue chute. Greetings from St John's Newfoundland Canada!
That was a great video, good to see a positive outcome after so much drama. I used to do outback charters (Outback remote Pub Crawls!) back in the '90's. Have had many a beer and good time at William Creek. There is/was? a C210 that landed wheels up on the lake after the pilot got "white out". I still have the Co-ordinates. I think the Prop is still on the wall at William Creek Pub. I am trying to make up my mind as to whether I buy a Searey or a Buccaneer sometime this year, as it is time to get back into flying and renewing my m'ship with SPAA!
Thank you so much for sharing. You persevered. That must have been difficult at some points along the way.
Congratulations and thank you for putting yourself out there. Some bad days just don't no when to quit!
GREAT VIDEO!
thats why you bring a couple of rocks along so you can drop them and see if they bounce
Enjoyed that. Working on a little chopper to fly around Australia. I imagine I will have some issues like this, hopefully not. So much for turbine engines being reliable with the Bell overheating.
Good video. Noticed the rallysafe stickers...
thanks for sharing
2x4s strapped to the top of the wing will prevent it from flying up into the helicopter. Will also allow it to weathervane into the wind as it normally would. Some rocks carried in the a/c and dropped along the landing zone will help reveal surface when tossed out in a low-level overflight and then looked over in a repeat overflight. Glad you're okay and back flying.
At least you knew someone knew whst happened and where you were. The other pilot made the right call, if he didn't make it back you might all be screwed, and he couldn't do any good for you there. Every minute he stayed there increased the chances of something going wrong.
Wow. What an ordeal. Glad to see no one was hurt. But someone or something didn't want to let go of the plane without a fight by the sounds of things.
That was very interesting, and informative. Also expensive. No need for the loud music at the end. Thank you
To the insurance company: “Well, you see, it’s like this…” But I have to say that I’m a pilot and airplane owner and one thing I NEVER say is “I think it will be all right.”
Fantastic story. Sorry you had so much trouble guys. With respect, I have wondered for quite some time now, why there does not seem to be any airboats in Australia. We have them in Florida, and I know of them traveling from water to hard dry land, and anything in between with ease. You guys down under have some extreme tide areas for example which can strand boats into dangerous situations. An airboat would have been very handy on those salt flats too. I think that an airboat would have worked to tow your plane to hard ground . Maybe one of you Ausies will build one for rescue. Anyway, glad to hear that all worked out for you In the end! And thanks for sharing your story.
Hi Tony thanks for your reply, a hovercraft would have been handy, unfortunately, an airboat would not have been any assistance as the lake is not title and can be dry for years on end. Also as we were over 100 km in a straight line to the closest town it would have been a very difficult recovery using a ground crew.
What was interesting is that the lake started to flood a day after we recovered the plane which was the second time in that year, which is very unusual. Sometimes it can be up to 10 years before the lake floods.
Here's some interesting information about Lake Eyre en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Eyre
Cheers David
@David Geers wow, a very tough place indeed. It's a given that situations like yours must be rare in that place, but I can't help but to think that there must be viable rescue alternatives for the area .In any case, none of that would have helped you out since there were no alternatives at the time. As regards air boats, these things are custom made . There are places in Florida which run them large enough to carry more than twenty people, and some of them fully enclosed, so a bit of math, would prove out whether my suggestion is really viable.Still imagination and a bit of know how could yeild an alternative for others going forward. Maybe. And I still don't know if that could have helped your situation, given the distance, evenifthey had them at the time. The flat bottoms are perfect for those soft surfaces , and yeah, a hovercraft is a nice idea too.
Heck, what an ordeal! Safe to say that luck was not on your side right from the moment the first rescue helicopter decided to give up!
Wow, what a mess.
I'm actually very impressed with the Searey. I would love to know the AGL from where it was dropped. Also curious if the fiberglass hull was damaged at all. That aircraft deserves that superman logo!
Hi Jim thanks for your comment, the pilot of the helicopter advised me that he was at 1500 feet. He also informed me that he thought it may land okay as after he released it. It started gliding back down to the lake surface. Close to the ground it started left-hand bank landing on the wheels and then flipping onto the nose and cartwheeling once. We could quite clearly see where the wheels had touched down and then flipped up on the nose. The hull survived pretty much intact a little bit of fibreglass damage where the wheel attaches on the left side. Cheers David
@@SeareyLSX That's amazing! Would have made quite a youtube video in itself. Almost made it down on it's own sounds like
I wonder if you could have had the helicopter sling the plane as high as possible, with you in the plane, and then do a release, glide, start the engine, and fly away?
Thanks for sharing! I would have tried to land, as well. Your story may prevent many such incidents in the future. 👍😁🙏
Awesome achievement!!
You was soooo bloody lucky to of got her out
I wasn’t expecting a Searey dry lake and recovery story when I started the video. David has joined an exclusive club whose members include Neil Armstrong and Chuck Yeager in their Smith Lake debacle.
Does the tail wheel retract? Or is it fixed even during water landings?
Hi yes on most Searey's tailwheel retracts. However after the rebuild I decided to make a fixed tailwheel which I think is a huge improvement. Much simpler system and doesn't take away anything from the performance getting out of water.
What a story! Almost too interesting to be true
……and all lived to tell the tale!
Damn helluva story.... at least you got stranded with a couple of young female pilots 😻bet the wives weren’t too thrilled about that part lol!
Big, fat tyres. Need huge tires
Doug made it back for beer O-clock
Yes but he did have his own little adventure before arriving....
I's good to see you developed some safety protocols albeit after the fact. Too bad you didn't review "landing on salt pans" in OZ before the fact.It isn't Bonneville.... NEVER land on an unknown salt pan and NEVER on Lake Eyre...ever! A little local knowledge would have saved you a whole lot of grief. You're lucky you survived that. Buy a crash helmet! Safety first.
I appreciate your comments, and agree with you one should never land on an unknown surface. However too our defence we did contact Trevor Wright from William Creek prior to the flight for some local knowledge, unfortunately most of the conversation was regarding a water landing, however on the day strong winds prevented us reaching the northern area of the lake where it was still flooded, where we were going to refuel with an extra 40 L of fuel in the second plane. Cheers
Your mate Doug was quick to fly off scared, surely he wasn't so short on fuel that he couldn't hang round for 10 minutes. He was totally safe in the air, just a sook overreacting.
Hi, one of the reasons I landed was Doug was running very short on fuel and he had 40L on the passenger seat in fuel bladders 20L each, We were originally going to be landing on water but stronger headwinds than predicted stopped us from reaching the northern end of the lake, where we could have landed on the water and refuelled. Doug managed to find somewhere to land off lake and refuel before reaching William Creek. He made a very wise decision and I would have done the same in his shoes.
Yeah he was like F U Dave I’m getting the F out of here good luck...seeee ya!
Doug left you.
Yes there was nothing he could do flying around in circles, best that he flew on to William Creek and raise the alarm, one of the reasons we landed was that we were short on fuel to make it to William Creek Doug had fuel bladders on the passenger seat. Cheers
@@SeareyLSX My apologies, I meant that as a question.
Doug left you?
Makes sense why, you’re a good friend.
You’re a good friend.
Eh kinda worth it 8:23
Plan to fail. Don't fail to plan. Lucky escape.
I don't get it, the helicopter overheated so they landed and stayed there? Were they just being nice and waiting for you? What stopped them from waiting for it to cool down and taking off again? For that matter from taking off with you with them. Did they _really_ overheat it, like to the point where it needed to be overhauled before it could be flown again? That's what happens when you let girls fly choppers 😒
Unbelievable. Why take a risk like that???
29:51 see all those birds ....not good