Skymaster Ditching in Hawaii
 

The pilot was unable to lower his landing gear, so he circled the airport for two hours burning off fuel, until landing in the lagoon at 1:55 p.m., an FAA spokesman said in an e-mail.

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/3...hanical-issues

N22DG

I am just wondering, I don't understand why the plane was ditched in the water vs runway? Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Maybe we haven't heard the whole story but I guess if I wanted to keep the plane and try to save it I don't think I would have chosen salt water.

I don't know much about DRY belly landings, but I had the same question as Herb, so I did a little research and found a link (below) that suggests that controlled belly landings are extremely safe. Yes, you'll do damage to the aircraft but it can be repaired, while I assume the ditching in salt water results in either a complete loss of the aircraft or a much more costly repair.

Here are quotes:

"Gear-up landings are not physically traumatic events. They rattle the mind more than the body. You can take some comfort in knowing that you're more likely to sustain a bruised ego than a bruised body from what is taking place.

Bodily risk in these situations results mostly from fire, and for several reasons the odds are pretty good that there isn't going to be a fire. Considering that low wing airplanes have considerable dihedral, you're not even close to contacting a wing sump drain with the ground (high wing airplanes, of course, have an even greater advantage here).

The chance of a post-crash fire after a gear-up landing in these instances is so rare that I couldn't find a single occurrence as I searched the NTSB database for the last 10 years. I received 271 reports, and there wasn't a single fatality resulting from a typical gear-up landing. In the majority of these cases, both pilot and passengers weren't even injured."

These quotes come from the following AOPA's Flight Training web page, on whether grass or concrete is better for a belly landing (concrete is better):
http://flighttraining.aopa.org/magaz..._or_Grass.html

That same web page looked at another study of 329 belly landings, and there wasn't a single fatality from a controlled gear-up landing. (There was one fatality on the SECOND belly landing of a Baron twin after an attempted gear-up take-off; the pilot forgot to put the gear down, attempted a take-off when the props touched the ground, one engine then failed, and an assortment of untamed aerodynamic forces drove the airplane into the ground.)

Ernie Martin

Thanks Ernie for the response. Check out the video below, he had a luggage pod installed and very minimal damage. Never even touched a prop blade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4HAMMJivZs

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbZlgHofgrI

Runway better than grass:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbZlgHofgrI

and if you have both engines running (and forget to lower the gear):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsqtWSIALXU

I would find the water landing a lot scarier but I guess the runway/water choice is an individual decision like anything else. Would get a lot less media attention on the runway, and if you had to pay for salvage/aircraft removal it would be a lot cheaper on the runway.

On land for sure
 

Personal preference, I would have landed it on the runway. not only the risk of egress in the water, but the damage caused by the water landing may make this aircraft scrap metal (beyond economical repair). The only possible thought I have, is that the airport did not want the pilot to land on a runway and shut down an operational runway. I have heard of ATC asking pilot to land on the grass versus the runway for this reason - but at the end of the day, it is the pilots decision.
Jeff

Here's a video to the water landing.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/473631185...#sp=show-clips

Enjoy

Retrieval of plane from lagoon
 

Salty Parts
 

Sad really - engines and all instruments would need to be overhauled/torn down. My vote is it is written off given the economics. Hopefully they clean it up good - potential airframe parts could be put on the market.
Jeff

OK so the video explains it - it wasn't the pilots' aircraft, he was renting it from Moore Air http://www.mooreair.com/TheClub.html so he didn't care re salt water as he just wanted the safest way out which was in his mind was to put the aircraft in the lagoon.
Faced with an emergency this mindset may be a good one to have (hey it's only a rental) but I think I still would have chosen sliding on the runway.
Hope the insurance at Moore Air covers everything.

I read somewhere he was in contact with the owner of the place he rented it, discussing his options, and that the owner supported the decision, thinking it was the right call. You have to figure how well-insured the aircraft was played a role in telling him to go ahead and dump it in the water.

Here if you haven't seen it is an interesting link on ditching (a rare event in a Skymaster):
http://www.equipped.com/ditchingmyths.htm