GPS facilitates ocean rescue

Mike MacDonald recounted the incident near La Paz, Mexico, on social media. He was flying a biologist offshore at 1,500 feet to survey ocean wildlife “when suddenly, our engine became dead quiet.”

MacDonald filled in a few additional details in a video chat three days later, using the same iPhone 15 that figured in his rescue, along with a Spidertracks aviation tracking system used by his employer to document MacDonald’s work and calculate his paycheck. Or, in this case, to alert Mexican authorities of the downed aircraft’s position—5.5 nautical miles from the nearest shoreline, 8.3 nm southeast of Isla Cerralvo near the mouth of the Sea of Cortez.

MacDonald reported on Facebook the aircraft sank “like a lawn dart” minutes after they ditched, taking with it the life raft stowed in the cargo compartment, along with his passport and other documents. He found his logbook floating nearby, and the iPhone he had secured in a pocket just before reaching the water following a roughly three-minute glide buzzed soon after he and his passenger inflated their life vests, which they had donned before the flight.

His employer, whom he declined to name, was calling to inquire about the emergency button activation on the Spidertracks, which the passenger had triggered during the glide. (MacDonald also recalled activating a portable GPS beacon in the water about a minute before the incoming call.) The conversation was brief, complicated by the wind and ocean waves, and the call dropped just after he was told that search and rescue personnel had been notified.

After about two hours in the water, MacDonald spotted a dive boat, which his passenger hailed on a handheld marine radio that had fortuitously also escaped the sinking Cessna, and they were soon handed over to the Mexican military, which performs coast guard functions, and on a fast boat headed back to shore.

In retrospect, MacDonald said three days later, he might have had the inflatable life raft in the cabin, so he could have tossed it out the window right before touching the water, though he would not have wanted a heavy object loose in the aircraft when they did hit the water—decelerating rapidly with considerable force.

“Things flew forward and smashed into us,” MacDonald recalled, grateful that none of those objects had the mass of the life raft packed into a brick.

The pilot’s sense of humor was evidently intact as he described preparing to return to Canada, first needing to secure a replacement passport. His iPhone 15 had survived the submersion, and MacDonald rinsed it off with fresh water once back on dry land and stuck it in a bag of rice to dry out for two hours, though he was impatient to get it charged so he could get going on the paperwork.

In his Facebook post, which began, “Still making new friends everywhere I go,” MacDonald thanked his rescuers for facilitating the prompt retrieval of pilot and passenger. He later learned that the distress signal had summoned “every boat, every little, tiny boat in the … area. The entire place came alive from what I hear.”

Thanks to modern technology, they had a good idea where to look.