Plane crashes, woman dies, survivor films and takes selfie

CNET ^ | 10 January 2014 | Chris Matyszczyk

[4Zoltan]

“At 69-70 feet underwater it was below the impact of waves”

I disagree. If you look at the videos it is readily apparent the wing were bent from the impact with the water. The wave action on the bottom would have been more like rolling back and forth across the rocky bottom. The fact the contents of the plane were being spilt out would certainly suggest that it broke apart on the bottom.

[butterdezillion]

Not according to the protocols. Protocols say you can only assume they are dead if they are decapitated, charred, have heart, lungs, and/or liver separated from the rest of the body, or exhibit rigor mortis. Everybody else - especially if there is a possibility of hypothermia which would lower the body’s metabolic rate - is to get CPR until a doctor tells the rescuer to stop. If medical care is more than 30 minutes away a rescuer MAY withhold CPR.

[butterdezillion]

Just a quick question while I peel potatoes. lol.

Did the NTSB interview Puentes? Did they ask to see his complete video?

Puentes was folding up papers as if to try to save them from the water. Can you tell from the video where he put those? Where on his body would he be able to keep those from getting ruined by the water?

[Fantasywriter]

Those must have been some monstrously huge waves.

"The passage of a wave only affects the water down to the wave base, which is half the wave length. Below that depth there is negligible water movement. This is the part of the water column that submarines use for "clear sailing." Waves in water deeper than half their wavelengths are known as deep water waves. Their speed in meters per second can be approximated by the equation Speed = gT/2π, where T is the wave period and g is the acceleration due to gravity (9.8 meters per second squared). gravity (9.8 meters per second squared).

Shallow water waves are those moving in water less than one-twentieth the depth of their wavelength. Waves approaching shallow water at a shoreline are in this category. In these waves, the orbits of water particles are flat ellipses rather than circles. Shallow water wave movements can be felt at the bottom, and their interaction with the bottom affects both wave and sea floor. Shallow water waves include both seismic sea waves (tsunamis) generated by earthquakes at sea, and tide waves generated by the attraction of the Moon and the Sun on the ocean. Both of these wave types have such long wavelengths that average ocean depths are easily less than one-twentieth that value. The speed of shallow water waves decreases as the water depth decreases; it is equal to 3.1 times the square root of depth. Transitional waves have wave lengths between 2 and 20 times the water depth; their speed is controlled in part by water depth and in part by wave period.

Read more: http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Tw-Z/Waves.html#ixzz2qDGHcswP

A second reference:

◾ it is this orbital motion of the water particles that causes an object to bob up and down, forward and backward as waves pass under it; however, this motion does not extend far downward (the particles experience a displacing force and a restoring force)

Did you catch that? The "motion does not extend far downward".

http://www.marine.tmd.go.th/marinemet_html/lect18.html

I guess you don't do much swimming in the sea, 4Z. Past the breakers, you don't have to swim down far at all to be untouched even by large waves. I wonder if even a tsunami disturbs the ocean bed at 70 ft? Well the point is moot; there were no tsunamis in the area during the time in question.

[4Zoltan]

I disagree with you. How exactly would he have performed CPR in the open ocean, with strong currents and multiple victims? It’s not possible. CPR requires the victim be on a solid surface to be effective.

[Fantasywriter]

Where are you getting the idea there were “strong currents” at the point of the crash?

[Fantasywriter]

A quick revision to my wave post. Unlike surface waves (which are what I’ve been talking about) tsunamis originate on the ocean floor. So in fact they do pass over & disturb the seabed on their way to land. Meaning, if one had occurred in this area, the plane’s wreckage wd indeed have been affected. Regular surface waves, however, wd not have
disturbed the plane.

[Fred Nerks]

I can’t see myself taking this any further than trying to identify the people in the water. One item might need to be revised:

It was assumed that the ‘tourists’ were one male, one female. Thinking now, the tourists might well have been two women.

Just can’t get my head around the idea of sabotage, there’s no way anyone can be sure of fatalities as the result of a belly-landing in a Cessna, they glide and land without power far too often and fatalities are the exception not the rule.

Watch this one belly land in a high, choppy swell:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/08/pilot-ditches-small-plane-in-pacific-ocean-after-fuel-shortage/

The pilot gets out, walks on the wing, the whole episode was filmed by the rescue crew who flew alongside.

Happened in October, 2011.

[4Zoltan]

Come to think of it, the CPR protocol may not even be employed in this instance. The triage protocols would certainly be employed first.

[Fred Nerks]

Of course I saw the video, and that woman with the mouth is an idiot.

[butterdezillion]

There was another person on board the helicopter who would care for the victims. The swimmer’s job was to get the victims up there so they could be worked on.

There’s a Discovery Channel video about how the Coast Guard does Search and Rescue (SAR) missions, at http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/other-shows/videos/sos-coast-guard-rescue-emts.htm

The rescue swimmer’s manual says that if they have all the victims together on a raft the swimmer has to decide which victim to lift first, so there is an element of discretion involved when there are multiple victims all together, but there are photos of the helicopters flying low - presumably to see where the victims were and which ones were desperate. They were all floating. Who was in a more critical situation than an unresponsive victim who was required to be assumed alive? Who in that bunch of victims were the rescuers expecting to have their life jeopardized by either Ornot or Peer taking the time to hoist up Fuddy?

[butterdezillion]

So we differ on whether it’s Yamamoto across from Fuddy, and whether 1B was the husband or the wife in the tourist pair. If it was the husband in 1B then where was the 74-year-old woman?

I want to see the images slowly, with time to digest what I’m seeing. Have to boot one of my kids off of their computer to do it though.

[butterdezillion]

We know the other tourist was male by the process of elimination; Mark Peer said he picked up a 70-ish man who was waving at him and smiled when Peer got to him. The person with a clear cut and bump on his head was probably Kawasaki so this guy wasn’t Kawasaki (who is 60). Neither Jacob Key, Yamamoto, nor Puentes are 70-ish. Hollstein swam to shore and wasn’t picked up by anybody. So this guy has to be the other tourist.

That they’re claiming, anyway. There’s one person on board that we’re not supposed to know about, and there were 5 males and 4 females mentioned, so the one we’re not supposed to know about is apparently that other woman who is not Fuddy, Rosa Key, or the 74-year-old woman.

[butterdezillion]

Show me these “triage protocols”.

The rescue swimmer’s manual only refers to a triage-type situation once: when all the victims have been gathered onto one raft and the rescuer has to decide which one to hoist up first.

What kind of “triage” would say that you pass by a presumed-alive but unconscious victim, just in case you might find somebody who needs you more? Who could possibly need you more, if you’re presuming the victim is alive because they are not obviously dead?

[Nero Germanicus]

The Kaiwi Channel, which is also known as the Molokai Channel, lies between Molokai and Oahu. Its maximum depth is 2,202 feet (671 m) and it spans 25.8 miles (41.5 km). It has a reputation of being one of the toughest ocean channels in the world because of the usually strong winds, strong currents and large swells. It is also known for being very unpredictable. One moment it may be calm as calm as a lake and then it suddenly it turns into a raging roller coaster ride. The annual Molokai Hoe outrigger canoe competition takes place in this channel. More than 1,000 expert paddlers, who come to Hawaii from around the world, participate in this event. The literal meaning of kaiwi in the Hawaiian language is “the bone.”

A submerged shield volcano called Penguin Bank lies to the west of Molokai and within the Kaiwi Channel. It is an area of relatively shallow water. The bank is about 10 miles (16 km) wide, 20 miles (32 km) long and the water depth is around 200 feet (60 m). There has been ongoing talk to build wind turbines on Penguin Bank.
http://www.to-hawaii.com/oceanchannels.php

[Fred Nerks]

...So this guy has to be the other tourist...

ok, and so it was his female companion at the wing with the bare arms and the wet hair, for whom Keys is blowing up the lifevest, she was sitting on the left at the front in the video. Then, doing a head count, that's the same person seen swimming away from the door where both Fuddy and Yamomoto are shown.

Unless that's the man who swam to shore...

Are you certain the rescuer didn't think the pilot was older than 60? He seems to have identified that person purely by his idea of how old he was. It would be difficult for him to judge that accurately if this is what he saw:

Here he is on a good day:

But you think there's a woman missing? I'm still more inclined to put the numbers discrepancy down to the idiot reporters and their florid language, spiralling out of control and crashing...etc. The Cessna is known for its ability to be landed in glide mode as long as there are no trees or obstructions. A belly landing in water isn't as dangerous as it's made out to be. Would be a very sloppy way to get rid of anybody imo. Hopefully, time will tell.

[Fantasywriter]

So is it a fact that Fuddy et al were being buffeted by strong currents? I hadn’t seen that item mentioned in any of the stories. But I haven’t followed this situation as closely as some. How far did the currents carry them? In which direction were they towed? Further out to sea? Inland? Did the strong currents come close to drowning any of them? Hadn’t seen that mentioned either, but again I cd have missed it.

[butterdezillion]

No, Cessnas don’t typically have fatalities when ditched. None of the NTSB’s investigations’ other 3 Cessna engine failures had fatalities; this is the only one, and Fuddy didn’t die from the crash but died of something else after the crash.

I’ve looked on pilot forums and all over the place. It would be hard to look them up again, but overwhelmingly the consensus was that ditching a Cessna 208 in water isn’t likely to kill anybody; if somebody was gonna die, they’d die from hypothermia or drowning after the landing. More likely hypothermia because the life jackets are required on the plane.

One of the early articles on the 12th had an expert from some pilots association, saying that it’s very, very rare for the Cessna 208 to have engine failure unless there’s a fuel issue, and ditching the plane safely isn’t difficult.

Which is why sabotage intended to create a smokescreen to hide a different means of death would be early in the flight, where rescue was likely to come early or victims could possibly swim to shore. That way the others could be rescued and only the intended target would die.

[Fantasywriter]

I had read somewhere that this flt was supposed to take off earlier but had been delayed. Have you seen that anywhere? [I don’t need a link. I just wondered if it stuck in your mind, since you seem to be better read on this subject than I am.]