Search continues for missing pilot

http://www.thesunlink.com/redesign/2...l/420302.shtml

I take students out over this area to practice every single day. The whole
area is heavily forested (as is all of western Washington), but there are
also several private airstrips, golf courses, farms, a pipeline right of
way, beaches, and many other spots suitable for an emergency landing.

If he landed in the woods anywhere in western Washington, you could walk
within ten feet of the crash site and never see it. In fact, when I was an
Explorer Scout (back in the '60s) I was taken to an area near Monroe to
learn search and rescue techniques. They had an actual crash site there that
they used for training. You could stand within arm's length of the airplane
and not see it.

The area is also dangerous for searchers because the trees are full of dead
wood that is constantly falling to the forest floor. The extremely uneven
terrain filled with dense undergrowth means that off-trail travel will be
less than a mile a day. Most of the undergrowth consists of salal, which
grows well over eight feet high in the wild and is more dense than any hedge
plant, interspersed with blackberry and devil's club with inch long thorns.
Relatively open areas will be filled with huge nettles and thistles. The ten
foot ferns give a Jurassic aura to the place, along with the enormous vines,
clover with four inch leaflets, skunk cabbage, vines and moss.

The skunk cabbage, blackberries, nettles, thistles and several other plants
are edible, but not very tasty.

Animal life is abundant, but you will see little more than curious deer.

Still, if the pilot had any warning at all, he should have been able to make
it to a relatively open area for an emergency landing. The trouble is, if he
was only at 500' above Case Inlet, then he could have been below treetop
level on the shore, as the land rises steeply to 400' almost immediately.
Students here typically practice ground reference maneuvers at between 1100'
and 1500' MSL.

--
Christopher J. Campbell
World Famous Flight Instructor
Port Orchard, WA


If you go around beating the Bush, don't complain if you rile the animals.