NY C 172 crash

Lucky it didn't flip. And at night, it's doubly amazing. I had my own icy forced landing event on the Hudson, but it was daytime and I never got wet. Couldn't imagine swimming in that river along with the little icebergs. But they did. Wow.
 
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One lucky pilot time to play the lottery.
 
More info - Apparently the pilot was a 31 y.o. CFI with a 17 y.o. student. They conducted a night flight from Long Island's Islip Airport (KISP) up to Stewart Airport (KSWF), located inland from the west shore of the Hudson River, and conducted a touch and go.

After departing Stewart they lost oil pressure, the engine quit, and informed the tower of their intentions. He proceeded land onto a large patch of ice near the shore. But definitely the full moon and landing light were helpful.

Following exiting the plane (still dry) they hopscotched from one ice patch to another until they ran out of ice to jump on with around 100' of open water between them and shore. They then jumped in and swam to shore.

Rescue came shortly afterwards. Brrrr....

No injuries. Treated for hypothermia and released from the hospital.
 
Well, there's some resourcefulness one doesn't see every day, errr, night.

While the CFI is reported as being 31 years old, I'm picturing a grizzled 75 year old veteran of All Emergencies That Have Ever Happened In An Airplane, and he handled this one without breaking a sweat.

:biggrin:
 
3393RP said:
Well, there's some resourcefulness one doesn't see every day, errr, night.

While the CFI is reported as being 31 years old, I'm picturing a grizzled 75 year old veteran of All Emergencies That Have Ever Happened In An Airplane, and he handled this one without breaking a sweat.

:biggrin:
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Ha... I'm a grizzled old 70ish veteran (of a few emergencies) and fairly confident I'd jump into that water and instantly have a heart attack! Youth has its advantages...
 
Wow. I flew over the Hudson just a few miles north of there Sunday. We noted that it was all iced over, with a little path through the ice. The Coast Guard used to, and I guess still does, run an icebreaker up the Hudson to Albany so that cargo ships can get through. Had the thought that it's both pretty and scary looking down there.

Glad they survived! A couple more weeks, guessing, and it would be all water.
 
Another interesting part to this survival story. Once reaching the shore the two pilots entered a warehouse, found jump suits, and changed into the dry clothes while they waited for help.

Apparently another light plane heard the radio call, saw the strobes flashing from the C172 parked on the ice, and circled it while giving location information to ATC. The holes in the cheese finally lined up for a positive outcome.

www.cbsnews.com

Another "Miracle on the Hudson"? New details revealed in small plane's emergency landing in the river

A conversation between air traffic control and the pilot of a small plane reveals the moments before an emergency landing on the Hudson River in Orange County.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com
 
Hang 4 said:
Wasn’t there, but I would have been tempted to stay on the ice vs swimming.
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Agreed. Maybe we'll hear more about this incident, you'd have to think there'd been a compelling reason to swim. Maybe the slab gave way and entering the water was inadvertent? Or, the river flow was moving them away from the shore?

The Hudson river near Newburgh is fairly narrow and the ice (slabs & mini icebergs) are quick moving. Plus, there doesn't appear to be any peninsulas or outcroppings to disrupt a quick flow, or anything else that could offer a place downstream to jump off the ice and onto shore.

In the winter of 1981 (as a very low-time pilot) I experienced a daytime forced landing onto Hudson River ice about 15 miles downstream from this one, near the opposing shoreline, where the river is wider. This latest Hudson River incident has rekindled some fond survival memories of my own. Ever since then, I've developed a lifelong interest in learning from other pilots' stories of surviving (or not) a loss of power, and the decision making processes that need to be addressed and prioritized under high-stress conditions, once the possibility of a forced landing becomes imminent.
 
I didn't realize the Hudson River was a fly-in destination! Seriously, I can't imagine being on flowing ice and having to decide if the ice was stable enough to wait it out or if I might end up further from shore or out to sea. Yikes.
 
One of the articles said they swam just ten feet. a different one said 100 yards
 
Hang 4 said:
Wasn’t there, but I would have been tempted to stay on the ice vs swimming.
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I think I would've stayed in the plane unless it was sinking. Too easy to break through the ice and not be able to get back up.
 
Dana said:
Fortunately my own Hudson River forced landing didn't involve getting wet.
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Great story! The Hudson has probably been an aircraft magnet for a long time when following the river, the only obvious choice to land when flying beneath controlled airspace (or icy clouds).

My story also didn't include getting wet, and I fortunately found a suitable section of the Hudson to land on five years prior to your bureaucratic nightmare snafu. GA certainly was a much different world back then.

Dealing with the FAA and local police was a lot easier for me. The Piper Cherokee Cruiser was a rental, and immediately became the flight school's problem.

Here's an accounting of the 1981 event that includes dealing with the FAA (on the ice) following the forced landing:

airfactsjournal.com

No Power, No Time: A Glide Toward Shore : Air Facts Journal

Instinctively I had started a left turn towards the shoreline and quickly ran through the memorized emergency engine procedures: carb heat (that lever was jammed), mixture, mags, fuel pump on, and switched fuel tanks. Nothing helped. I found a throttle setting, somewhere between half open and...
airfactsjournal.com airfactsjournal.com
 
Articles say they hopped from ice floe to ice floe until there wasn't another one near enough to jump to. So they swam 100 feet to shore, found a warehouse with overalls or something, and stayed as warm as they could til being found. Really a miracle, but they worked for it.
 
AV8R_87 said:
They don't lock the place at night?
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:dunno:
www.cbsnews.com

Another "Miracle on the Hudson"? New details revealed in small plane's emergency landing in the river

A conversation between air traffic control and the pilot of a small plane reveals the moments before an emergency landing on the Hudson River in Orange County.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com

A conversation between air traffic control and the pilot of a small plane reveals the moments before the aircraft pulled off an emergency landing on the Hudson River in Orange County on Monday night.

The pilot and passenger took off in the Cessna 172 from Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma just before 7 p.m., according to FlightAware.

A little less than an hour into the flight, the pilot communicated with air traffic controllers from Stewart International Airport, according to audio from Broadcastify.com.

"I think we're losing our engine," the pilot said. "I think I might have to put it in the water."

"We're going into the Hudson River. I don't think we're gonna make the airport," he later added.

The pilot told officials they had a "little bit of power, but it's very rough."

Plane lands in icy waters​

The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane landed at around 8 p.m. near the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge after experiencing engine issues.

The two people on board, identified as instructor Liam D'Arcy, 31, and a 17-year-old student, were able to get out and swim through the icy water to shore. They were transported to a nearby hospital with minor injuries, according to Middle Hope firefighters.

CBS News New York's Carolyn Gusoff spoke to D'Arcy on Tuesday at his home in Suffolk County. He told her he feels good and never doubted he and his student would survive. He said that when they reached shore, they found some overalls in a warehouse, changed into warm clothes and waited for help.

Pictures showed the plane floating among chunks of ice on Monday night.

11-newburgh-ice-landing-image.jpg


A crane pulled the Cessna 172 closer to shore Tuesday, but there's still no word yet on when it will be removed.

State police are coordinating the removal of the plane. The cause of the engine failure that preceded the crash is under investigation.

The student's identity has not been released, but CBS News New York learned he is a resident of Locust Valley on Long Island.

Mini miracle on the Hudson​

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called the incident "another miracle on the Hudson," referencing the emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on Jan. 15, 2009. All 155 people on board that flight survived after the aircraft landed on the Hudson River off Manhattan.

Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus said, "We are so proud of all the first responders that were part of this successful rescue."

Pilot Brandon Gallagher was with other pilots on a sightseeing flight on Monday night when they heard the mayday call. He said they flew over the scene and helped direct first responders to the Cessna's emergency landing site.

"As soon as we heard they were losing oil pressure, I immediately thought that's pretty bad," Gallagher said.

He said he agrees with the governor about Monday night's emergency landing being a miracle.

"Yeah, absolutely, it is a miracle and with great skill as well that they were able to not tip over the airplane, and that they were able to swim to shore, especially in the freezing, freezing cold, so they did an amazing job," Gallagher said.
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Some great stories! It's good to hear some stories of people that have survived it. The last I remember was a warbird that landed OK, but from my memory the pilot couldn't get the canopy open or otherwise couldn't get out quickly enough. I've flown the corridor and there aren't many other options but the river. Farther up here, we have some open land/fields.

I'm more familiar with the river up here, but even in that part the river, and loose ice, is going to be flowing south, and given the photo of the plane in the ice that ice doesn't look thick. I'd bet it was moving and/or cracking underneath them. Unlike NYC, I don't believe that's a very populated area on the shoreline, so there wouldn't necessarily be anyone that saw them or would see them in the water. Speculation based on my limited time flying in that area. I'm also not going to second guess someone that survived an engine failure and landing with no injuries.
 
AV8R_87 said:
They don't lock the place at night?
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Probably a good chance the warehouse is abandoned, with little left inside worth stealing. Many businesses located in upstate NY's small towns and cities are not exactly thriving.

Access from the river is likely to involve some hiking over rough terrain. Nearing the end of a cold winter, I'd expect they encountered large rocks, heaved up ice slabs, fallen tree branches, and all kinds of assorted debris along that section of industrialized shore line. Probably needed a good reason for traversing. And that they had.
 
Rick A said:
The Hudson river near Newburgh is fairly narrow and the ice (slabs & mini icebergs) are quick moving. Plus, there doesn't appear to be any peninsulas or outcroppings to disrupt a quick flow, or anything else that could offer a place downstream to jump off the ice and onto shore.
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All good points. The part that nags at me just a bit is did they not have phones? There would likely have been a local FD/SAR capability that could have gotten to them with a boat or raft of some sort as well as having the ability to get warm and dry quickly.
To me, staying dry would have been priority #1. If you had to swim, having someone there to meet me would have been priority #2.
I wasn't there, so trying not to cast shade, but more an exercise in what are the best options in that situation.
 
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