After a forced landing in the bush, this pilot did three things that made the difference between survival and possible death.
It was the end of a successful winter hunting weekend in the Kaimanawa Forest Park. The pilot – who we’re calling John – his dog, his sister, and their hunting buddy, boarded John’s Cessna 172, bound for home.
John (PPL, with around 600 hours at the time) had already flown some of their gear out. As they prepared for their final departure mid-afternoon, he noticed the weather conditions deteriorating more quickly than expected. He decided they would head for Tūrangi rather than Taupō or Taihape.
“It was a routine flight, operating in an area I know well,” John says.
“Coming out with the second load and my passengers, visibility seemed not too bad. I came through the trickiest part to navigate, but then there are two valleys with similar headings – and I flew into the wrong one.”
Split-second decision
An engineer by trade, John is used to critical thinking. “The 172 is a low horsepower model so even though only moderately loaded in this case, once at altitude it leaves little performance to spare. I went to configure it the right way for a turn, but when I went to turn out, I could see the performance was not there for turning across the valley. I didn’t want to go into a stall spin – that usually doesn’t end well at low altitude – so I decided I needed to find a place to turn around or land. It became apparent, with no space to turn, we would have to land in the valley.
“Naturally, the stress levels went up. I didn’t say much – there was no time – but I warned the others to tighten their seat belts for a forced landing, and headed up the valley.
“The time between realising it was the wrong valley, to landing at the end of it, was about 30 seconds, a minute at the most. There was no panic. I flew the aircraft up into the hill, flaring up the bank. The 172 is light, so that helped with landing at low air speed. There was a noise of crunching aluminium, and we ended up perched on the trees, the nose touching the bank and the tail out over a 40ft drop. My first thought was the risk of a fire, so I immediately turned the power off.”
Personal locator beacon
“The aircraft ELT had not activated so I initially turned it on, but this interfered with the VHF comms I needed with aircraft overhead, so I turned it off. I considered activating the PLB that I carry in my pocket as it has GPS functionality but, already knowing our exact location, there was no need.”
Although none of the group was physically injured, John’s friend became distressed, and calming him down was the first step.
Stay with the aircraft
Then John made some key decisions that proved fundamental to their survival. Their wet weather clothing was among the gear he’d flown out earlier in the day. With rain setting in, and just a few hours until darkness, he decided the group would stay put.
“I knew there was no way we could walk out at night by ourselves.”
Flight following
John contacted aircraft overhead to let LandSAR know the crashed Cessna’s GPS coordinates, and asked them to relay the message that the group were not injured and would be able to walk out – but only with assistance.
He asked an overhead pilot to text his dad (who was flight following) to let him know they were okay, and to contact their friends waiting at Tūrangi aerodrome to say they would not be arriving.
John’s anxiety levels rose when there was muddled communication between Christchurch Air Traffic Control and LandSAR, with his messages not being conveyed correctly. But with a bit of clarification, the rescue team was dispatched and headed into the forest.
Stay warm and dry
“We put on all the warm gear we had, including emergency blankets. We stayed in the plane, and waited. It wasn’t that we couldn’t get out, but we just didn’t want to leave the aircraft because of the conditions. It felt like a very long time.
“Then around 2am – about nine hours after we landed on those trees – I heard the search and rescue guys yelling. I climbed out via the landing gear leg and wing strut to the ground next to the nose.
“I’m a hunter and I spend a lot of time on wild terrain, so I was able to get across to them, and I brought them back to the aircraft. We were keen to get out of there. We were pretty cold, and we got colder still when we were walking out.”
Within an hour of leaving the stricken aircraft, the group and their LandSAR rescuers were out of the bush.
“I certainly appreciated them getting out of bed for the night,” John says.
The after-effects
Four years have passed since the crash, and John says he’s spent a lot of time re-thinking it.
“I remember vividly flying up the hill, approaching the bank, seeing the trees coming up, and the sound of the crunching aluminium. It’s not something I have nightmares about, but I remember that quite vividly.
“It definitely gave me a bit of a shake-up, for sure. I felt a bit… I’m not sure what the word is… you get a bit flustered for a while.
“It was a bugger-up – my fault and no-one else’s. I was angry and upset with myself that I went up the wrong valley.”
He says a mix of complacency because of the familiar surroundings, combined with flying in marginal weather conditions, contributed to the event.
“It’s that complacency thing. I was right in that risk profile. I was definitely in that classic buildup for an incident – too familiar with the surroundings, and complacent with all those different little things.
“But what I did was the right thing to do. I wanted to avoid stall spin. And the main thing is that, while I bent a plane, everyone was safe.”
Although shaken up by the event, John got back to flying quite quickly after the crash.
Life-saving decisions
He says three factors were most important in ensuring the survival of his hunting group.
“We were flying in winter, so we planned to be at home base well before dark. We had plenty of fuel, and daylight, and we had lots of Plan Bs. If you’re feeling stressed, it probably means you haven’t given yourself enough options before you started the flight.
“Communication is everything. I’m a big fan of PLBs, because they have GPS. Some aircraft ELTs don’t have GPS so they are only accurate to within a few kilometres.
“Having flight following was crucial. It would have been even more important in raising the alarm if we hadn’t been able to make contact with aircraft overhead.
“When we got into trouble, my ability to make good decisions was helped by the fact I’d done a lot of field strip flying, and I had good instructors and good training for emergencies. Reading accident reports is also a great learning tool. Be ready for the emergency, so if it does happen, it’s just a procedure.”
More advice
For more advice on how to survive after a precautionary landing, download our Good Aviation Practice booklet, Survival:
GAP booklet: Survival [PDF 1.8 MB]
Photo: iStock.com/raclro
A forest valley typical of what we see in New Zealand. Inset: John’s plane stranded on top of the canopy