As a professional speaker I always inform my audience that, in the event of a fire, they should follow me out one of the marked exit doors. Of course, I jest (a little). The fact is that knowing how to exit a place of danger is very important. Especially when that place is an airplane that has just completed an emergency forced landing.
Your ability to exit a damaged airplane is an important safety consideration. After all, despite our discussion on reducing postcrash fires, they can still occur. Thus, getting out and away from the airplane after a crash is always a good idea. This is one of the reasons I recommend that you pop open one or more exit doors before making the emergency landing. Once open, you should wedge something between the door and the airframe to prevent the door from closing during impact. An unused jacket, sectional chart, or hat is often readily available for wedging purposes.
It's been suggested by some that opening a door prior to impact may reduce the airplane's structural integrity. This is a reasonable point since crash tests on airplanes (for structural integrity purposes) are usually done with the doors shut, not open. But is the increase in structural integrity worth the increased risk of a door jammed shut by the impact? I suspect it's not, although the risk certainly varies with the type of airplane and the manner in which the cockpit is constructed.
It's still possible that an emergency landing in inhospitable terrain might result in airframe damage which could prevent the airplane's doors from opening. Figure 1 shows a Cessna that flew up a blind canyon (a one way canyon) and crashed on the side of a hill. Notice that the left wing was twisted on impact, preventing the pilot's door from opening. The passenger's door, however, was usable for egress.
Bent or twisted wings present a problem both for high and low wing airplanes. If the airplane has only one exit door (like most single-engine Piper products) then egress may become difficult if that door is blocked. Fortunately, there is another means of escape that few pilots (and passengers as well) consider: baggage compartment doors.
Baggage compartment doors are often latched with very weak locking mechanisms. In many cases, one good kick will pop most of them right open. Some airplanes, like Mooneys, even have pullable pins which allow you to open baggage compartment doors from the inside.
Several years ago a young lady named Dara wrote to tell me of her involvement in a crash of a Grumman American Tiger (a four place airplane with a sliding canopy). She was in the rear seat while two others occupied the front seats. The engine failed on takeoff and the resultant hard landing started a fire (the master switch was not turned off and engine's heat probably ignited leaking fuel).
The right seater escaped by sliding the canopy rearward while the pilot was semi-conscious and remained in the left seat. Fire prevented Dara from exiting through the canopy and over the wings. Though not a pilot, she had attended one of my In-flight Emergency seminars and knew what to do. She climbed over the rear seat and kicked out the baggage door for egress. Dara is a petite lady, perhaps weighing no more than 100 pounds. The pilot regained his faculties and managed to escape despite serious burns. The point here is that the baggage compartment is a viable means of escaping an airplane. It's even more relevant in this instance since it leads to an exit away from the wings which commenced to burn.
Of course, making your way to the baggage compartment becomes difficult when you have to climb over seats and baggage to get to it. This is a good reason to test the feasibility of exiting the airplane through the baggage compartment while parked on the ramp. Of course, since it's not a real emergency you shouldn't kick the door open (even if it is a rental). Just climb over the front and back seats and assess the difficulty of exiting this way.
Additionally, if your airplane has a baggage net between the rear seats and the baggage area, it should have quick-disconnect clamps for easy removal in an emergency. Nothing worse than a net preventing your escape. (Can you imagine how those dolphin feel when they become trapped with their tuna buddies? Of course, if those dolphin are so smart, why are they hanging out with tuna in the first place?)
An airplane that rolls inverted during an emergency landing presents another serious problem for egress. Suppose your airplane has only one exit door, like the Cherokee 140. If the airplane comes to rest inverted and on its side, the exit door may be blocked. A few weeks ago I showed you a picture of Jim Stone's airplane that did exactly the same thing after it clipped a tree and lost a wing (Figure 2). Fortunately, Jim kicked out the side window which made for an easy escape.
Remember, airplanes like the Cherokee 140 have double latching mechanisms. One latch is located on the door handle; the other is located on top of the door. An inverted airplane coming to rest on the upper door latch might render that latch inoperable. All the more reason to open the door prior to impact, especially when it's the airplane's only exit door.
My friend Don Bymaster, who teaches the pilot proficiency program for the Mooney Safety Foundation, offers some good advice in these situations. Don recommends that, in an inverted airplane, your quickest means of egress isn't necessarily through the Mooney's single entrance and exit door. He suggests bracing yourself and kicking out a side window. Often, this offers a much easier and quicker means of exiting the airplane. This recommendation is part of all his passenger safety briefings. I believe this is good advice for most airplanes (assuming that they aren't pressurized airplanes, of course. Pressurized airplanes have much stronger and beefier windows that are undoubtedly more difficult to dislodge, unless, of course, you kick like Bruce Lee).
What if you're flying a canopy-type airplane (Figure 3) and it rolls inverted? In my opinion, this is a very serious problem. Canopies on airplanes like the Katana, AA-1 Yankee, Tigers, etc., don't provide a great deal of supportive structure in the event the airplane lands inverted. It's possible that the canopy may crush and crumble making normal egress through the canopy difficult if not impossible. It's not a problem if the airplane has an accessible baggage compartment. But what if it doesn't? Well, you're going to love this bit of advice.
If you're flying a canopy-type airplane without a baggage compartment for egress, I recommend that you carry a tool for cutting or breaking Plexiglas (nope, I'm not kidding). Suppose your canopy-type airplane rolled inverted during an emergency landing. Unless you have some means of cutting through Plexiglas, you're not getting out until the firemen arrive with the appropriate tools to liberate you. Why wait? Carry your own tools.
A good hatchet is my tool of choice. A small saw-type cutting tool capable of cutting into and slicing through Plexiglas is another acceptable choice. Don't think that you can cut through Plexiglas with a small pocket knife or that you can shatter the Plexiglas with a good punch or kick. You may eat your spinach and asparagus and be big and strong, but Plexiglas is designed to flex. It's unlikely that you'll be able to break Plexiglas with your hand or foot. (Last week when I talked about kicking out a window, I meant kicking it out of its mountings, not breaking the plastic).
This advice may seem a little unusual, but it's good advice nevertheless. Of course, if I carried any sharp object in the airplane I'd do so in a way that wouldn't cut, hurt, wound or intimidate anyone. Be smart, carry the hatchet or saw-knife in a pouch and tuck it away somewhere. Don't wear it in a holster around your belt during preflight and, whatever you do, don't mumble to yourself while you're holding it. No one will fly with you and line personnel won't service your airplane.
Remember, these are recommendations and should never supersede the information in your Pilots Operating Handbook. Additionally, whether the airplane is high or low wing, rigid or plastic canopy, tailwheel or tricycle gear, is irrelevant in terms of in-flight safety. One airplane is not necessarily more safe than another. The key to safety is in how you prepare to fly the airplane. Of course, if you have an airplane like the one in Figure 4, you never need to worry about the wings blocking an exit during an emergency landing in inhospitable terrain. In fact, you never need worry about exiting the airplane because no one in their right mind would get in this thing.
In the final Part of this series we'll cover a few more points to help you in the event an emergency landing is necessary in inhospitable terrain.
For more information on this subject, see "The Long Wait: What To Do Until Help Arrives."
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