British pilot (in Britain), survives forced mountain landing

Tomahawk pilot flying over a mountain range in North West
England/Wales survived a forced landing but had to be cut free from
wreckage. Sounds like he's a bit knocked about but he'll live.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/w...st/3056443.stm

Good coverage from the BBC. Got his aircraft make & model right (Piper
Tomahawk, not 'Piper Cessna' or the usual junk); no 'engine stall',
they call it 'engine failure' and best of all: "It is down to his
skill that he managed to land."

It's a Welsh mountain, so it's not all that big (highest peaks in that
area are at or below 3,500' MSL) and certainly flyable (by a properly
trained pilot of course) in a training-type aircraft. Just nowhere
around that's flat to land on.

It would appear he'd filed a flight plan as SAR services were
activated when he failed to show up. Britain is a lot smaller than the
US so their job is somewhat simpler; nowhere is anything like as
remote as some areas of the US. In any event he was lucky. Walkers die
up there as it gets very exposed.

Text:

Pilot survives mountain crash

A pilot has made a "remarkable" escape after his light aircraft
crashed in Snowdonia.
The Piper Tomahawk two-seater plane crashed on the Elidir Fawr
mountain above the Peris and Ogwen valleys just after 1500 BST on
Thursday.

Pilot Steve Lovatt - who had to be cut free from the wreckage of the
aircraft - is believed to have sustained some serious injuries but
they are not life-threatening.

Roger Jones of the Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Team: "It's absolutely
remarkable that somebody can land an aircraft in Snowdonia and
survive."

Mr Lovatt will now be stretchered down the mountainside by hand to a
low cloud base at which point he will be picked up by an aircraft.

Reports suggest that had to make a forced landing and rescue teams are
now working to free him.

A major search got under way when the plane failed to turn up at
Caernarfon Airport after taking off from Nottingham this morning.

Chief Flying Instructor at Nottingham Airport, Richard Flanagan, said
the Nottingham-based pilot was experienced and had planned his journey
well.

"Exactly what happened we don't know," he said.

"The first reports are that a walker heard an engine stop so it sounds
like engine failure and he was forced to land.

"It is down to his skill that he managed to land."

Ogwen Valley Mountain rescue team had 10 people, supported by Raf
Valley 22 Squadron, searching a five mile radius of Bethesda.

Mountain walkers had reported hearing an aircraft followed by a loud
bang.

The privately owned plane took off with one person on board at 0915
BST from its base at Nottingham Airport on Thursday.

It made a routine navigation call to Liverpool Airport Control 20
minutes later but then lost contact.

Published: 2003/07/10 14:09:22 GMT

© BBC MMIII

When I lived in Cardiff (did my graduate work in Wales) we used to do quite
a bit of walking (US: Hiking) in Snowdonia. Pretty inhospitable terrain up
there. The good news is that the timber line is pretty far down the peaks,
so there is a lot of empty (but steep) hillside to try and land on. Kind of
like the Adirondacks, but quite a bit more rugged, with fewer trees except
in the valleys. Sounds like he did a pretty good job of getting it down.

--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)


"Tim K" wrote in message
om...
Tomahawk pilot flying over a mountain range in North West
England/Wales survived a forced landing but had to be cut free from
wreckage. Sounds like he's a bit knocked about but he'll live.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/w...st/3056443.stm

Good coverage from the BBC. Got his aircraft make & model right (Piper
Tomahawk, not 'Piper Cessna' or the usual junk); no 'engine stall',
they call it 'engine failure' and best of all: "It is down to his
skill that he managed to land."

It's a Welsh mountain, so it's not all that big (highest peaks in that
area are at or below 3,500' MSL) and certainly flyable (by a properly
trained pilot of course) in a training-type aircraft. Just nowhere
around that's flat to land on.

It would appear he'd filed a flight plan as SAR services were
activated when he failed to show up. Britain is a lot smaller than the
US so their job is somewhat simpler; nowhere is anything like as
remote as some areas of the US. In any event he was lucky. Walkers die
up there as it gets very exposed.

Text:

Pilot survives mountain crash

A pilot has made a "remarkable" escape after his light aircraft
crashed in Snowdonia.
The Piper Tomahawk two-seater plane crashed on the Elidir Fawr
mountain above the Peris and Ogwen valleys just after 1500 BST on
Thursday.

Pilot Steve Lovatt - who had to be cut free from the wreckage of the
aircraft - is believed to have sustained some serious injuries but
they are not life-threatening.

Roger Jones of the Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Team: "It's absolutely
remarkable that somebody can land an aircraft in Snowdonia and
survive."

Mr Lovatt will now be stretchered down the mountainside by hand to a
low cloud base at which point he will be picked up by an aircraft.

Reports suggest that had to make a forced landing and rescue teams are
now working to free him.

A major search got under way when the plane failed to turn up at
Caernarfon Airport after taking off from Nottingham this morning.

Chief Flying Instructor at Nottingham Airport, Richard Flanagan, said
the Nottingham-based pilot was experienced and had planned his journey
well.

"Exactly what happened we don't know," he said.

"The first reports are that a walker heard an engine stop so it sounds
like engine failure and he was forced to land.

"It is down to his skill that he managed to land."

Ogwen Valley Mountain rescue team had 10 people, supported by Raf
Valley 22 Squadron, searching a five mile radius of Bethesda.

Mountain walkers had reported hearing an aircraft followed by a loud
bang.

The privately owned plane took off with one person on board at 0915
BST from its base at Nottingham Airport on Thursday.

It made a routine navigation call to Liverpool Airport Control 20
minutes later but then lost contact.

Published: 2003/07/10 14:09:22 GMT

© BBC MMIII

On 10 Jul 2003 10:22:21 -0700, Tim K wrote:
It's a Welsh mountain, so it's not all that big (highest peaks in that
area are at or below 3,500' MSL) and certainly flyable (by a properly
trained pilot of course) in a training-type aircraft. Just nowhere
around that's flat to land on.

Smaller mountains are still mountains and require knowledge of mountain
flying. The only thing the Welsh mountains don't have that the Rockies
do is the very high density altitudes. All the other mountain flying
hazards are present, though: rough terrain and few good spots to make
forced landings, big differences in weather conditions over a short
distance, downdrafts, mountain waves, rotors and turbulence when it's
windy. (Even small mountains will do this - the glider club here
has had several wave soaring flights off Snaefell, whose peak is a little
over 2000' MSL). As for the weather, you'd expect with the Isle of Man
being only 30 miles long and 12 or so wide, the weather conditions would
be substantially uniform across the entire island, but Snaefell and friends
ensure that the weather can be dramatically different depending on where
you are. Quite commonly it can be drizzly and wet with ceilings so low
not even the airliners are flying at Ronaldsway, but in the north, it
can be bright sunshine and a nice day for flying gliders!

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message ...

Smaller mountains are still mountains and require knowledge of mountain
flying. The only thing the Welsh mountains don't have that the Rockies
do is the very high density altitudes.

Well, the difference between the short mountains and the rockies also is that
you can get above most of the mountain effects by getting several thousand
feet above them. This you can do if the peaks are 3500, but harder when they
are about 9000.