The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Splash landing, no one hurt

Via Fallows, video of a small plane ditching in the South Pacific with no injuries:

Fallows explains:

On yesterday's flight, the pilot discovered that a valve from the extra fuel tanks was jammed or broken. So he was fated to run out of gas before reaching Hawaii. After several hours of debugging and discussion with his flight-managers by radio, as the fuel level dwindled he decided to fly as close as possible to a cruise ship (which was alerted) and then pull the Cirrus's unique whole-airplane parachute and come down to the sea for rescue by the ship.

This incredible video, shot from a Coast Guard C-130 that was monitoring the whole process, shows what happened next.

The plane, I expect, did not survive. But the pilot did, which would not have happened even 20 years ago in similar circumstances.

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