Monday, September 24, 2012

Bainbridge Island, Washington - Author offers pilots lessons on landing on the open ocean

 

Dave Montgomery, of Bainbridge Island, has written this book to help pilots think about what to do if they had to land a plane in the ocean.


By Tad Sooter 
Kitsap Sun 

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — A commercial airliner maneuvering around thunderheads over the open ocean encounters a sudden, heavy hailstorm. Golf ball-sized chunks of ice batter the plane's fuselage. Its engines flame out one by one as the hail grows denser. The plane is going down.

Thirty harrowing minutes will pass before the disabled airliner splashes into frigid water. The decisions the pilot makes in that half-hour could determine whether his passengers live or die.

"There are a lot of fancy computers and things to help you from the ground," Bainbridge pilot Dave Montgomery said. "In reality, it all comes down to you."

That 30 minutes between a midair calamity and a water landing consume much of Montgomery's new book, "Blue Water Ditching: Training Professional Crewmembers for the Unthinkable Disaster." As the title suggests, it's a manual for successfully landing a plane on the ocean, miles from shore. 

Montgomery, a captain for private aircraft provider NetJets, believes his book fills a void in the world of commercial air travel. Pilots and flight attendants don't spend much time preparing for ocean landings, he said.

"There are a lot of aspects of over-water ditching that people haven't trained for," Montgomery said. "And I'm trying to not be too critical of the industry."

Read more and comments: http://www.kitsapsun.com

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