You may have read of the lucky survival of a pilot in the Pacific 1200 km south of Hawaii this week.
According to press reports here [ Australia ], Ray Clamback , 67, was en route to Australia via Hawaii when the engine of his new Cessna 182 seized. He ditched at 7.30 a.m. local time and the aircraft flipped.
He escaped with lifevest, and apparently little else survival gear.
The ditching was observed by an escorting light aircraft who alerted USCG and a Hercules was dispatched from Hawaii.
I saw a quick TV interview with the Herc's pilot who said even though they had good co-ordinates for the search, they still had difficulty finding the guy. They found him eight hours after the ditching.
They dropped a raft and other gear and Clamback was hauled out after 16 hours by the crew of a container ship.
This is the second time Clamback has been rescued after a ditching south of Hawaii. He spent 10 hours in the Pacific in 1999, before rescue. His job is delivering aircraft [ and surviving!].
It will be interesting to hear if there is a survival corollary to this. Given the C-130's pilot's account, did Clamback have a signal mirror, personal EPIRB, flares, waterproof VHF, and strobe on his person? One would hope so.....

For Doug's analysis of the original ditching by Clamback, see

http://www.equipped.org/1199ditch.htm

I love flying, and it seems like it would be great to have a job where I make a living flying a lot, but this doesn't seem like a way I would want to do it.

Thanks Aardwolfe, I forgot that Doug had analysed Clamback's original ditching. I guess that Doug will be on the phone again to our lucky pilot to get his perspective on the latest incident.
Clamback is currently en route to Melbourne on the container ship that picked him up.
On prima facie evidence it appears that Ray Clamback either once again had difficulty with his life raft, probably because of the inverted aircraft, and he had no personal EPIRB. But I find this hard to believe, after his '99 experience...

Whats that old saying " third time makes the charm?" <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

-- His job is delivering aircraft --

He should add the title "Test Pilot" to his resume. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Are they ever able to retrieve any of these Ocean downed planes to determine what caused the problem and how to correct it?

What brand and series of engines are most often the victims of forced landings. If the problem is engine failure, the brand of airplane is not as important as the brand and model of engines that fail.

Maybe Doug could do a roundup review of engine failures to determine who is making engines with the most failures.

Bountyhunter

I believe that any noticeable trends get picked up by the FAA or similar pretty soon.

Well, I believe one of the problems ferry pilots encounter (I think I read a thread on this in this forum a while back) is that the CO2 canisters used to inflate life rafts are considered "dangerous cargo" and therefore, the cost of shipping them back to the point of origin (after completing the ferry flight) is more than the pilot gets paid for making the flight.

We won't know until someone does an analysis of this second incident, but Laurence Gonzales points out that some people never do get the message Mother Nature is trying to send; he cites the case of a hiker in (IIRC) Grand Canyon National Park who was rescued suffering from heat stroke; six months later he died of hypothermia in a different part of the same park.

There's also the fact that sometimes, pilots who have had a mishap take solace in the fact that "there are those who have, and there are those who are going to" and subconsciously conclude that, since it's happened to them once, it will never happen again.

Whether or not any of this had anything to do with Clamback's second ditching is pure speculation at this point. But, personally, I'd think twice about accepting a lift from him at this point.

OwcA:

But is airplane engine failures by brand and model publically posted and archived anywhere so that the average pilot or wannabe can review it whenever they want?

Bountyhunter <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />