[Mitchhhs]

I was once in a plane crash in which the wing of our small plane hit the mast of a sailboat that was motoring in front of the runway and we didnt see it. We impacted the seawall and flipped over onto land and slid upside down a few hundred feet.

The author's description of both not feeling his injuries until he tried to move as well as his own recognition of not being dead were spot on. I would have described it exactly the same way myself. I ended up with a broken foot and leg, but overall no lasting damage which was extremely lucky. Looking back on that experience is always incredibly surreal.

[codingdave]

It is amazing how little you feel immediately after an accident. Mine wasn't so death-defying, but I did shatter my shoulder in a bicycle accident, and called a friend to come get me and drive me and my bike home. I did not realize I was hurt until he got there, and could not stand up or move the left half of my body. Then we decided to go to the hospital instead of my home. But for about the first 10 minutes, I thought I just was just scraped up a bit...

[joejerryronnie]

Back in high school, my ear got cut nearly in half in a car accident. I didn't feel a thing until the paramedic jammed and taped a styrofoam restraint against my ear as a precaution for neck injuries. Apparently, the full range of pain free neck motion vs the gouts of blood gushing from my ear wasn't convincing enough.

[cr0sh]

I didn't break anything, but I'm amazed that I didn't when I had a bicycle accident several years back.

I was doing something real stupid - mid 30's, showing off to my wife, on a bike with Amerityres; I had just gotten those tires installed. They're great tires - solid tires, but feel like they are aired up. Well worth the price.

What I wasn't told was that you shouldn't do any kind of "jumps" with your bike...

So there I am showing off, and I decide to ramp off this one section of sidewalk (that actually made a good ramp). I landed, and that's when things went to hell.

Ya see, Amerityres don't deform like a regular tire does. Instead - they come off the rim. I went a$$-over-teakettle.

To this day I don't know all what or how I landed, but I do know my knee took the brunt for some reason. I came within inches of slamming my head into a concrete block retaining wall for the raised bed of the neighbor's lawn that was next to the sidewalk. The bike was totally mangled. My wife was horrified.

Now - I knew I had taken a good spill, but I thought "well, dust yerself off, laugh about it" - which I did. I told her I was fine, go home and grab my pickup so I can get home. As she biked off, I decided I would get up, and walk the bike home. I slung it up on my shoulder, and started to walk (note, this was a cheap walmart bike, and weighed a bit). Everything seemed ok. She eventually got to me, I put the bike in the back, then slumped in the passenger seat. We went home, then went inside.

We started to discuss what we were going to have for dinner (KFC, if I remember right), when I looked down at my knee...

...it was swollen to the size of softball! It didn't really feel that good, and I could barely walk on it.

We went to urgent care that night. They xray'd me and told me nothing was broken. Gave me a script for vicodin (yay), wrapped up my knee, and gave me a crutch. I hobbled around for a few weeks, and eventually all was better, with no problems in the leg since.

But in the immediate aftermath of the crash, I had no idea just how bad I was injured, nor the amount of pain I would feel. I was just walking along, carrying my bike on my shoulder, like no big deal.

I guess a lot of accidents are like that, if serious enough; probably some kind of survival holdover tactic to allow you to "get away" and to safety after an injury (or worse) a predator attack.

[simooooo]

Shattered my shoulder in a bicycle accident too!!

3 mins after, a ski medic was shuffling pieces of bone around in my shoulder and saying "i think its dislocated" all without any pain but feeling very badly winded. Adrenaline is impressive. Morphine is the best

[Cryptid]

As soon as you said this I thought of Peter O. Knight and the Davis Island Yacht Club. I used to watch the planes land as we derigged our dinghies.

[clamprecht]

Wow, where did this happen - which airport?

[Mitchhhs]

Peter O Knight Airport, Tampa, FL. Heres some coverage of the incident:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/accidents/two-hurt...

[drzaiusapelord]

Christ, what a mess of an accident. You'd think there would be a practical solution to this that didn't involve operators having to worry about each other behaving correctly. Like moving the airport or shipping lane somewhere else so they don't interfere. Or the tower handling this via automation like a laser bouncing across the waterline and triggering an alert if a boat is too close to the shore.

Have you developed a fear of flying over this? Curious about the long term aspects at play here. Who was found at fault here? I'm assuming the boat captain.

[Mitchhhs]

I have many thoughts on all of this.

1. Regarding solutions: This airport does not have a tower, so its up to the pilots to use the radio to announce intentions etc. To me, the core problem is that this does not loop in the boats and so there is no way to communicate. I think having the boats or some third party announce when a crossing is occurring would help. I also think, in response to this accident they moved the runway a few hundred feet further from the channel.

2. Regarding blame the NTSB actually ruled it pilot error, but I think that is myopic and only because there wasn't really anything else they could say since their jurisdiction doesnt extend into the rules of boats. Technically it is pilot error, but there were other errors as well from each side that all combined.

3. In terms of fear of flying, im actually okay. I had to fly twice per week for work for many years following this. Sometimes i'd have some flashbacks or bad thoughts, but overall don't have an issue. I've also been back up in a small plane just to do it. That said, I view commercial airplanes as completely safe and have no real fear with them. With small planes theres just so much can go wrong. The planes are not the issue, they are safe themselves. However, because of many small airports not having a tower, the lack of safety comes from having to deal with many other factors at play. I want to fly again later in life, its amazing and I have a love of planes. At this point though I feel like it would be pushing my luck so don't really do it.

[mannykannot]

In what way do you (or drzaiusapelord, if you see this) think that the boat operator was in any way at fault? There doesn't seem to be any indication of that in the NTSB report[1], and the newspaper report states that the boat was in the channel.

[1] https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?E...

[Mitchhhs]

I don't really place blame with any one thing, but a mix of a bunch of factors. For the boat, they were motoring much closer to the side with the runway, instead of the side further away. Its not technically wrong, but if they were exercising any caution at all would have been farther away and likely out of our glideslope. On our side, we should have checked more deliberately that nothing was in our path. On base, I saw nothing, but the time we were on final I guess the boat had moved and was then in the way of the runway and neither I nor the pilot in command saw it.

Mostly though, I think there just should have been much more regulation given the number of parties operating in the same space.

[simonswords82]

It's amazing how little governance there is in the sky for general avaiation - aka small planes flown by private pilot license holders. When I studied to get my PPL it was the one thing I learned that shocked me.

There are NOTAMs (Notice to Airmen) that tell us about new structures that have been erected that could be problematic. NOTAMs also tell us if parts of the sky are off limits, for example if an airshow is on.

Other than that, and I am generalising a lot, there is no air collision avoidance in the majority of private planes here in the UK. Your two best mechanisms of defence are your eyes, and keeping one ear on the radio to get a feel for where everybody else is. If they're not too busy air traffic control will warn you about other planes in your vicinity, but it is not mandatory. There are also TCAS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoidance_sy...) systems you can bolt on to your plane, or might come with new planes, but they're not mandatory and I've yet to fly a plane that comes with one.

As for finding fault. That doesn't happen in air accident investigations. Air Accident Investigation Reports (https://www.gov.uk/aaib-reports) are specifically engineered to focus on the problem, and find a solution to prevent a repeat of it. They are not designed to apportion blame, but instead learn from the mistake and build mechanisms for ensuring that the same outcome is mitigated. That's not to say you won't be prosecuted but that's a separate process.

[howard941]

WTH was a sailboat mast doing in front of the runway? Was the pilot performing a short approach?

[Mitchhhs]

So at this airport, there is a shipping channel you fly over right before the airport (the airport is on an island). However, this sailboat was motoring closer to the airport side and didnt have any sails up making it harder to see. Also, we were in an Extra 300, which is a tail dragging aircraft so we couldnt see over the front cowling. We impacted the boat at 40 feet, so gives you a sense of how close it was to the start of the runway. I didnt notice anything until all of a sudden I saw a pole whiz past the right side of my field of view and heard a bang. Next, thing I know we are rotating upside down, I feel an impact, then watch as the ground slides by a foot above my head (the aircraft has a glass canopy). Was conscious the whole time. Ended up pinned between the aircraft and the ground hanging upside down in my harness. Just typing this makes me think, oh yeah that actually happened.

[bitexploder]

I have seen bad car accidents happen and been in minor ones.

I am curious about how you remember your perception of time. This is a simple description, but it is "fast not fast" when it is happening to you. "Yep this is happening. Oh, they are going 25. Yep they are going to hit me, that is going to be scary, possibly hurt, and cost a lot to repair. I hope this doesn't hurt my neck. I should put my feet flat. Crunch. Okay, that didn't hurt. The airbag didn't deploy. ..." In about 1 second.

Watching the accidents it is sort of surreal, just sort of flat. Bang. Spin. Stop. Airbags deflate. I immediately check surroundings, move out of danger, call 911, try to recall safety things, keep people in place if their injuries seem serious and their vehicle isn't on fire, but it all feels "real time" watching things. It just doesn't register the same in my brain.

[Mitchhhs]

Yeah id say this is pretty accurate. My memory of the event is non-continuous, meaning it is composed of very matter of fact thoughts and images not a continuous video. Overall, id say it is real time, though probably drawn out given the amount of thoughts I remember from what was probably 5-10 seconds of real time.

My direct memory is basically as follows:

1. Whoosh of pole, bang noise. 2. "Was that a sailboat" 3. See/feel the world rotate 4. "I think we are going to crash" 5. "I could die" 6. I don't actually remember the impact just flipping and all of a sudden seeing the ground above my head upside down 7. "I'm still alive...but its not over yet" 8. The glass shatters and we come to a stop 9. My friend asks if I am okay. I respond yes. 10. I quickly feel my face as i'm not sure how injured I am, there is some blood on my hands, but not a large amount. 11. I start to feel a burning sensation as some jet fuel and other chemicals are reacting with my skin 12. I start to panic as I realize the gravity of the situation and begin to call for help. 13. Just as I am beginning to really panic, I feel a hand reach in and the plane lifts up. 14. I undo my harness, as my leg moves for the first time, I realize a sharp pain in my foot. 15. I am pulled from the plane and dragged from under my arms with my legs facing the plane. I watch the plane get farther away as im dragged. 16. I am layed down and am instructed not to move until the paramedics come.

[jdmichal]

It doesn't help that the Davis Island yacht club is right next to the airport.

https://www.google.com/maps/@27.9136028,-82.4500183,1593m/da...

[jdmichal]

Could have easily happened at Albert Whitted across the bay in St Pete, also. Usually just hear about planes running off the runway and into the water.