By Brenton G Davis
Images courtesy of IFAP 

For me, it was a menacing vibration immediately followed by a disconcerting explosion. Every warning bell and whistle of the Bell 206 simultaneously screams for attention and the unspoken horror of my passengers combines with my own mortal fear to make for a seriously frantic couple of seconds. Engine failure in a single engine helicopter really heightens your awareness!

Brendan Wilkinson had felt a high pitched buzz through his H500 just after take off and heeded that ‘gut’ feeling that everything just wasn’t right. He returned to land on the tuna boat, shut down and talked it through with the engineer. Finding nothing to speak of on their inspection, the A.M.E. joined the flight for a test run. But Brendan’s ‘gut’ was right and just passing through 500 feet something let go. The aircraft rolled and pitched violently through almost 180 degrees, as he fought to stay upright for the few vital remaining seconds.

We had both ditched single engine helicopters from roughly the same height into the unforgiving ocean. Brendan had probably done half a dozen Helicopter Underwater Training Courses prior to his accident; I’d done none. So, what can be learnt from our two different approaches to the same basic scenario?

For me, it was my very first job as a pilot and a blundering eleven months of employment with absolutely no check and training had been immediately proceeded by six months of looking for work. The cumulative total? Fifteen months since my last ‘auto’ of any sort and, back then, the industry had barely even heard of H.U.E.T. courses. So, what then, in my opinion is the primary objective of any helicopter ditching? Simple: self preservation!

Since that first very rude induction to our industry I think I’ve completed some thirteen Helicopter Underwater Escape Training courses through five different providers. Nothing hones your preparation for emergencies like having actually survived one. This article seeks to highlight those most critical actions which may just save your life when things go quiet over the top of that deep blue sea.

As pilots we are trained to react with certain prescribed actions for virtually every aspect of our flight. If you spend any time at all over water in your daily flying pursuits, then I would suggest that you become every bit as comfortable and confident with the requirements of a ditching, as you are with a normal landing. Let’s look at some facts to put some of this into perspective. Australian Military statistics show us that of helicopter ditchings, 78% will have less than 15 seconds warning. 14% will have up to one minute warning and only 8% will have any more than this. And remember, being military stats, these encompass twins, as well as singles. So you can extrapolate that if you only fly singles, these figures are drastically more stacked against you.  Dr Chris Brooks, an ex Royal Navy Captain and now lecturing expert on helicopter ditchings with Survival Systems of Nova Scotia, tells us that 50% of ditchings, controlled or otherwise, will turn upside down. Again, these are for both twins and singles, so in the single engine only category, I would suggest this is a much higher percentage. His facts also show us that if you have no H.U.E.T experience you have a 66% survival expectancy, compared with 92% after completing the training. 

Now I can tell you one thing for sure, the technique which saved my skin the day my Bell 206 decided to go swimming, is not taught in any classroom, or written down anywhere as procedure. I exited that machine with brute strength and sheer determination to live, kicking and bashing at everything I needed to until I was free. I was lucky that day! When an emergency decides to take up residence in your little world, your body will naturally react with either a fight or flight response. And no one can predict just how they will individually react until it does actually happen to them. What you can be sure of though, is the age old adage goes: ‘previous preparation prevents piss poor performance.’

What to do in a ditching can be taught and retained in just as crucial a fashion as what to do with your left hand when your only engine quits. Train and retain a few very simple things and the most terrifying thought of ditching your helicopter, will become a very survivable thing.

Jim Gloriod, Senior Facilitator with IFAP in Fremantle, has run a great deal of HUET courses, with countless successful participants. He has seen a lot of people face their worst fears strapped into a simulated helicopter as it plunges into the water then rolls upside down fully submersed. Training the people who are comfortable in the water is a relatively simple thing, but for the ones who face their real fears in the wet, only key principles can lead to survivability. I can still clearly remember my instructor persistently asking me, “where are you going to go if the engine quits now?” Over and over he would chant it until I eventually flew along constantly looking for my escape options. Preparation is the key to survivability. If you fly over tiger country, you look for your forced landing spots. If you fly over water, I suggest you switch your brain to a different mind set. When you go ‘feet wet’, you would do well to train your brain to quietly revise those principles taught in the H.U.E.T.

Brendan Wilkinson’s machine hit the water pretty much 30 degrees, rolled left and 60 degrees nose down. The few split seconds he had on the way down would have been indescribably hectic as he fought both physically with a cyclic bashing from stop to stop and mentally as he tried to analyse the problem and prepare for impact. It is hard to imagine a less ideal way to ditch a machine. But he’d been given considerable training in just this scenario and, in amongst all that was happening in his world at that very moment, his body and mind were able to draw on what he had been taught and he lived to tell the tale, amazingly, uninjured!

From what I experienced first hand, what Brendan has told me of his accident and what the experts have moulded into premium training packages, the crucial fundamentals of surviving a helicopter ditching run like this:-

Orientation, is key. Your pilot seat is your office. You know where everything is and you can reach out and touch everything you need. You can do it with your eyes open, and just as well, I would suggest, with them shut. Your orientation is your saviour, so spend a few minutes every now and then, before you start up closing your eyes and feeling for everything that you may need. Just as they teach in the H.U.E.T., feel for where the door handle is, the release lever, where to grasp for your primary exit, and where to find your harness buckle. Then do it all again for a secondary exit. It’s a simple refresher drill that may only take you twenty or thirty seconds but it is time well spent. And if you have become comfortable doing it with your eyes closed, then murky water, refracted sunlight, or any other host of variables will not fluster you when you are really trying to save your skin.

Wait. That is what they teach you next, so learn to apply that discipline. As helicopter pilots we know better than anyone else the dangers that lurk outside of our cockpit. So wait, for all movement to cease, before you exit the machine.

Create. An exit that is. I did it frantically with my feet, shoulders, hands and head. A little training and reinforcement has shown me it need not be so hard. If you learn and digest your exit strategies, it is a simple disciplined movement.

Release. To me, this one is probably the key, because with it comes the unbreakable law of never crossing hands! When your first hand has created that exit, it stays there: that is your lifeline. It is then and only then that your other hand releases the buckle.

Escape. Pull yourself to freedom. Nothing feels better in the H.U.E.T. course, unless of course you actually have to do it for real.

A training course like these, will take up a good part of your day and, if you fly over water, it is time very well spent. There are key elements to focus on and they are simple ones to retain and revise. My ditching was alarming and sudden but infinitely survivable. I got out of it without the help of professional training, but I can assure you that it was more by good luck than good management. Brendan Wilkinson’s was infinity more alarming and the only thing I can think of which could have complicated it more was had it also been at night. He’d had good training and he came through it admirably. To me, the moral here is simple. Don’t hope that things won’t go wrong and don’t hope that you will just be lucky on the day that things do.

If you fly over water, invest in the training. But most important of all, once you have that skill set, revise it and review it regularly. Get to know the actions as well as you know any other emergency on your aircraft. Chances are, you may only get one shot at getting it right.