Episode 1
In the Spring of 2021, Truman O’Brien and Craig Beles, two pilots from Vashon Island, WA experienced what pilots prepare for and fear the most – a crash landing in hostile terrain. Returning from dropping off one of their planes for a paint job, engine failure just south of Mt. St. Helens, WA caused them to use some incredible decision-making skills as they rapidly descended to the forest floor. Watch this first part in a 4-part series to hear what was going through the heads as they “put it in the trees.”
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This is an incredibly good example of FLIT: Forced Landing Into Trees!
It so happens that trees are the most prolific as well as the best energy-absorbing ‘obstacles’ that can be used for absorbing the kinetic energy of an aircraft, when in a largely horizontal orientation and flying close to stall speed!
FLIT: Forced Landing Into Trees provides pilots with multiple additional potentially life-saving emergency forced landing options when traditional emergency forced landing options are few: https://av8torsafety.com/flit/
Thanks for sharing a valuable information to us. keep on sharing like this.
Many, many thanks to both Lightspeed and Craig and Truman. There is SO much good advice here – especially for us septuagenarian pilots. A valuable – and delightful – series of short videos with advice I will certainly never forget. 👍👍
Why is it better to fly through the crash vs trying to get the minimal speed at impact which would be the early stall?
Lightspeed answering on behalf of Truman O’Brien
When you’re in a stalled condition you are no longer in control and have no way to keep the airplane in the most advantageous attitude for impact. All it takes is a minimum airspeed above stall to maintain attitude control. The few knots extra speed will have minimal effect on the additional “Gs” you will sustain upon impact. This was certainly the case in our crash.
I believe it helped so much for Craig and Truman’s survival that they remained calm. Flying the plane through the crash.
Scary stuff! Enjoy your blogs 🙂