16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash

Posted by: Mark_R

16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/14/15 07:32 PM


Quote:
Autumn Veatch, 16, couldn't tell the 911 operator where in the Washington state wilderness the small plane went down. Somehow, she survived; her grandparents apparently didn't.

Veatch, covered in bruises and burns, hiked out of the rugged mountains two days after Saturday's crash, police said.


http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/13/us/washington-plane-crash-girl/index.html

She stayed near a river the first night and hiked out the second day. For reasons I don't know and can't guess, the ELT apparently did not work.
Posted by: Russ

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/14/15 08:16 PM

AFAIK small general aviation aircraft such as the Beech A-35 aren't required to carry an ELT. Good that she kept her head and self-rescued.

SAR will find the plane by using her description and backtracking.

Edit: Yeah, ELT's are required. See AOPA link below.
Posted by: Russ

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/14/15 11:13 PM

Here's another article. Navy helicopters and CAP are conducting the search. No mention of ground efforts.
‘A Miracle': Teen Girl Hikes 2 Days Through Forest To Reach Safety After Surviving Plane Crash
Posted by: unimogbert

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/15/15 02:16 AM

ELT is required equipment.

But they can fail for many reasons - most having to do with crash geometry and installation (tearing off the antenna cable for instance)

2 days foot travel from the crash site will greatly narrow the search area.

Sure is a tough way to end a trip.
Posted by: Russ

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/15/15 03:40 AM

Regulatory Brief -- Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs) I did not realize ELT's were required on small GA aircraft.
Quote:
"...When ELTs were mandated in 1973, most GA aircraft were equipped with an ELT that transmits on the 121.5 MHz frequency, the designated international distress frequency. The original ELTs were manufactured to the specifications of an FAA technical standard order (TSO-C91) and have an activation rate of less than 25 percent in actual crashes and a 97 percent false-alarm rate. ..."
(Bold added by me)
Posted by: Dagny

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/15/15 12:09 PM


Lucky, gutsy young lady.



.
Posted by: AKSAR

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/15/15 03:32 PM

Teen leaves hospital, wreckage found

Sounds like they spotted the plane late yesterday, but couldn't reach it before dark. Should be some updates later this morning.
Posted by: chaosmagnet

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/15/15 04:27 PM

Seriously hard core. This underscores how much of survival is based on mental toughness.
Posted by: AKSAR

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/15/15 05:16 PM

A bit more info: Crews will try to reach plane crash site Wednesday
Quote:
A crew of mountain-rescue volunteers and a Skagit County Sheriff’s deputy are among those hiking Wednesday morning through rough terrain to reach the site of what could be the plane crash that 16-year-old Autumn Veatch survived.

Late Tuesday, state officials said search crews spotted wreckage of a plane near where the teenager emerged from the woods, but they were unable to reach the site.
------------------snip--------
John Himmel of the Washington State Department of Transportation said the agency could not verify that the wreckage was from the Beech A35 that was piloted by Autumn Veatch’s step-grandparents. Veatch said she was the only survivor.

“We don’t know that we’ve found the right wreckage; we know we’ve found wreckage,” he said. Himmel said the wreckage is less than half a mile from the highway as the crow flies.
Posted by: dougwalkabout

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/15/15 07:15 PM

I'm glad she made it out okay. Going cross-country in the PNW bush seems to me like an easy way to disappear off the face of the earth. Luckily she hit a trail and followed it; otherwise the ending could have been very much different.

I agree about the comment re mental toughness. Not everyone would have the grit to do what she did. On the other hand, it takes a lot of mental toughness to stay put too, when your every instinct is to go find help. As I understand it, staying put usually has the best outcomes.
Posted by: Russ

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/16/15 12:37 PM

Bodies have been recovered from both aircraft crash sites. A second aircraft from MN also crashed Saturday.
Posted by: CANOEDOGS

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/17/15 02:53 AM

notice that she did not try and make a shelter or rub two sticks together to get a fire going but just went for it.
i would not want to stay by or near the wreckage but get away from a scene out of hell.
Posted by: dougwalkabout

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/18/15 02:04 AM

Originally Posted By: CANOEDOGS
i would not want to stay by or near the wreckage but get away from a scene out of hell.


Yeah, that's an understandable reaction. The young lady went through a horrible, traumatic event -- her grandparents burned in that wreck. How many of us would be thinking clearly after that?

Standing back from it, though, I still think that going blind into PNW bush, which can be incredibly dense and disorienting in a lot of places, is a surefire recipe for increasing the casualty count. Note that I don't have any specific information on this particular area -- maybe it's not as dense or overgrown, which would change the equation.
Posted by: EMPnotImplyNuclear

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/18/15 07:08 AM

Originally Posted By: dougwalkabout
How many of us would be thinking clearly after that?

Either 80% or 20% smile
Posted by: Roarmeister

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/19/15 01:06 AM

Apparently, she credits watching Survivorman with her dad when she was a child. "Going downhill, finding water, following a creek, slept curled up in ball, found a trail then the highway." Word got back to Les about this and he skyped a call to her in the hospital and told her he looked up to her. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/16-year-plane-crash-survivor-thought-nightmare-32513971

Les Stroud if you didn't know is a Toronto hospital himself after a vehicle accident in Mongolia left him with broken ribs and a collapsed lung.
Posted by: AKSAR

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/19/15 01:20 AM

Some more info on her survival in this article in the Bellingham paper.
Posted by: TeacherRO

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 07/20/15 07:36 PM

Even a little bit of knowledge helps...do this; not that
Posted by: TeacherRO

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 09/01/15 06:54 PM

and here, a tiny survival/edc kit might have also helped.
Posted by: JeffMc

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 09/01/15 09:45 PM

Originally Posted By: Roarmeister
Apparently, she credits watching Survivorman ...


Les is da' man! "What would Les Stroud do?" is an excellent survival question to ask yourself when you suspect you've gotten yourself into trouble.

Alternately, "is this something Bear Grylls would do?" is an excellent survival question to ask yourself if you need to rethink doing something that's too risky.
[No disrespect - Bear is a highly knowledgeable, credible and experienced outdoor expert, but, unlike Les, his shows are entirely for entertainment, not practical survival instruction]
Posted by: TeacherRO

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 12/08/15 09:29 PM

A case where a small ' here take this for the duration of the trip ' kit or a 'here's where the gear is" 1 minute speech approach might have been helpful.
Posted by: TeacherRO

Re: 16 year old girl found alive after WA plane crash - 04/08/16 06:14 PM

...and a keychain with a whistle, compass and spark striker...