Pilotage

Aviation writer Mark R. Twombly is based in southeastern Florida.

Jerry looked down from our 11,000-foot perspective and studied the barren, mountainous island passing slowly beneath. Then he shifted his focus back to the map on his lap. We were flying just east of the Windward Passage, a short chute of deep water separating Cuba from Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). We had just flown over a peninsula forming the northern boundary of the Haitian mainland, and this island was the last bit of land before crossing more open water to the Turks and Caicos islands and our destination, Providenciales.

Then Jerry announced our position. "That's the Île de la Tortue," he said, pointing downward. Now, I'm not up on my French, but the combination of Jerry's ominous inflection, my overactive imagination, and Haiti's reputation as one of the poorest and most mysterious lands in the western world sure made it sound like we were over the "Island of Torture."

Jerry and I laughed about the island's name, but the underlying message wasn't lost on us. A forced landing is one thing when it occurs on the U.S. mainland. It's quite another if it happens outside U.S. territorial waters.

We had departed Grand Cayman earlier that day, and after an eventful fuel stop in Montego Bay, Jamaica, ("cash only," the fueler said, which necessitated a taxi trip into a rough part of town to extract money from an automated teller machine) we headed east for Provo, nearly 700 miles away, mostly over open water. Our best defense against a forced landing was a pair of motors, but if we had to ditch, at least we had an inflatable life raft and life vests aboard.

Exiting the airplane with vests and life raft intact is the first step in surviving a ditching. The second step is getting rescued. If we went down anywhere south of Cuba, whether near Grand Cayman or Jamaica or Haiti, who would come get us?

I got my answer in a restaurant in Provo.

Jerry and I were finishing off a late dinner when we noticed a group of U.S. Coast Guardsmen. The guardsmen sat down at the bar and ordered cheeseburgers. We figured they must be from the Coast Guard HU-25 Falcon Jet we saw at the Provo airport when we were clearing customs.

We learned they were from the U.S. Coast Guard's Miami Air Station at Opa Locka Airport just north of Miami. "We've been flying around the Caribbean for the last few days," I explained. "I'm wondering, if we had to ditch somewhere along the way, who would rescue us?"

"We would," they said.

This was excellent news. I'd pick the U.S. Coast Guard to rescue me any day. It has the equipment, training, communications, and experience to get the job done better than anyone.

Take the HU-25. It's equipped with a special area navigation computer for conducting precise search patterns, large "scanner" observation windows on each side of the fuselage aft of the cockpit, a "drop hatch" hole in the cabin floor, and a winch that rides in a track mounted to the cabin ceiling. Using the winch and drop hatch, Coast Guard personnel can jettison a raft, a water pump (to a boat taking on water), a buoy containing an electronic beacon, flares, and other emergency equipment to someone stranded on the high seas.

Suppose that someone was me. What should I do to ensure a search-and-rescue attempt? Here's what the Coast Guard says: Make sure someone is aware of my problem and knows my position. With a GPS aboard I should be able to get a precise lat/long fix on my position right up to the point where I ditch. The bigger problem may be communicating with the local air traffic control facility. Foreign controllers speak English just fine, but their communications equipment can be unreliable or can have spotty coverage.

Even if I'm having trouble with ATC I can always broadcast a Mayday that will be heard by aircraft in the air. As long as someone hears my call and gets the coordinates of my position, I can be confident that the information will find its way to someone who can help. It's likely that word of a ditching in the Gulf or Caribbean south of the United States will be forwarded on to the U.S. Coast Guard. The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos islands have effective volunteer search-and-rescue systems in place, but even so, the Coast Guard may be notified.

The Coast Guard would determine where its closest "resources" were, including the HU-25, the HH-60 Sikorsky Seahawk helicopter, the HH-65 Dolphin helicopter, and ships, and deploy what was needed. If the mission were launched from Miami, the HU-25 would go first. With a range of 2,000 miles and a top speed of 485 knots, the jet would reach the search area quickly. The slower helicopter would also launch.

When the HU-25 reached the area of the reported ditching, the crew could drop down to a few hundred feet above the water, slow to 130 knots, and begin a patterned search based on our last reported position. When one of the crewmembers sitting at that large observation window spotted us, they could hail us using a loudspeaker and drop equipment and supplies if needed. The Falcon crew would notify the chopper crew of our position, and then loiter until the helicopter arrived to pick us up.

Overwater flying in a small airplane is an excellent adventure. Knowing that the U.S. Coast Guard is equipped and prepared to search for and rescue you in the event of a ditching sure removes a lot of the "torture" of making the trip.