Two pilots survive plane's lake landing
SHANNON O'BOYE and KEN KAYE Knight Ridder Tribune News Service
on a run to the
nearby trees, power lines, high-rise condominiums and marinas packed with
boats.
Alejandro Bristol, 28, brought the plane down belly first in the middle of a
lake next to
With the grace of a baseball player sliding into home plate, the Convair 340
skipped across the water from the west to the east for approximately 300
yards.
and the south.
Rick Kellogg, a pilot who lives aboard his boat in
enjoying a cup of coffee at about
a plane's engine idling as if about to land.
"Finally it clears over the tree line about 80 feet off the ground," Kellogg
said. "I knew he was on one engine, and I knew where he was going.
"He had it all under control," Kellogg said. "It was beautiful. It wasn't
luck. It was the pilot."
he relied mostly on instinct.
"I managed, luckily, with the help of God to get it down," he said Saturday.
"The power lines (over
over them."
as soon as possible. The son of a pilot, he said one close call isn't going
to scare him away from doing what he loves.
Joe Alvarez, a marine patrol officer with Sunny Isles Beach Police,
maneuvered his boat close enough to
the plane that
Dennys Villavicencio,
51, of
Once Miami-Dade firefighters realized
uninjured, they began to help Coast Guard and Fish and Wildlife officers
contain an oil slick that threatened the lake, which is home to mangroves,
fish and manatees.
The crews contained the slick, estimated at 15,000 square yards, and then
used absorbent pads to soak up the oil.
At the same time, a salvage company developed plans to remove the plane from
the water. They said they probably would float the plane to the surface,
pull it toward shore and either move it by barge or dismantle it and load it
onto a truck. The process was expected to take 12 hours.
the marina, recognized the plane because "Re-elect George W. Bush" is
painted in large red letters on the
fuselage.
statement was the work of his boss at Miami Air Lease, an air cargo company.
The doomed flight began at about
took off from
loaded with electronics, toys and furniture.
plane vibrating and saw smoke coming from the left engine.
Procedure called for the pilot to give the good engine full power and
"feather" the dead engine, or lock its propeller to a stop, allowing the
plane to maintain altitude or climb. A propeller that is allowed to keep
spinning creates drag.
However,
unable to maintain altitude. He knew he wouldn't be able to make it back to
the airport and began looking for a safe place to land. The lake was his
only option.
Tom Curran, a former cargo pilot, said a plane that has lost power and is
heavy can be tricky to fly. Pilots cannot turn sharply, or they could lose
speed and altitude and stall. Suddenly, the wings lose lift.
"In most airplanes, you don't want to turn unless there's a mountain out
there in front of you," Curran said. "When you turn, it's like having a barn
door hanging out, you lose lift. You don't have that much of a margin before
you stall."
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident. The
aircraft is relatively large, weighing more than 23 tons. It could have
caused major destruction had it crashed into homes or buildings, said NTSB
spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz.
Cargo plane crash-lands in Aventura
lake
By Shannon O'Boye
and Ken Kaye Staff Writers
Posted
North Miami Beach · A cargo plane pilot who encountered catastrophic engine failure Saturday morning on a run to the Bahamas deftly landed his craft on a lake just south of the Aventura Mall, avoiding nearby trees, power lines, high-rise condominiums and marinas packed with boats.
Alejandro Bristol, 28, brought the plane down belly first in
the middle of a lake next to
With the grace of a baseball player sliding into home plate,
the Convair 340-70 skipped across the water from the
west to the east for approximately 300 yards.
Rick Kellogg, a pilot who lives aboard his boat in
"Finally it clears over the tree line about 80 feet off the ground," Kellogg said. "I knew he was on one engine, and I knew where he was going.
"He had it all under control," Kellogg said. "It was beautiful. It wasn't luck. It was the pilot."
"I managed, luckily, with the help of God to get it
down," he said Saturday. "The power lines [over
Joe Alvarez, a Marine Patrol officer with
Once
The crews contained the slick, estimated at 15,000 square yards, and then used absorbent pads to soak up the oil.
At the same time, a salvage company developed plans to remove the plane from the water. The company said it probably would float the plane to the surface, pull it toward shore and either move it by barge or dismantle it and load it onto a truck. The process was expected to take 12 hours.
The doomed flight began about
Procedure called for the pilot to give the good engine full power and "feather" the dead engine, or lock its propeller to a stop, allowing the plane to maintain altitude or even climb. A propeller allowed to keep spinning creates drag.
However, the pilot said the feathering mechanism failed to work, and he was unable to maintain altitude. He knew he wouldn't be able to make it back to the airport and began looking for a safe place to land. The lake was his only option.
Tom Curran, a former cargo pilot, said a plane that has lost power and is heavy can be tricky to fly. Pilots cannot turn sharply, or they risk losing speed and altitude and stalling. Suddenly, the wings lose lift.
"In most airplanes, you don't want to turn unless there's a mountain out there in front of you," Curran said. "When you turn, it's like having a barn door hanging out, you lose lift. You don't have that much of a margin before you stall."
The NTSB is investigating the accident. The aircraft is relatively large, weighing more than 23 tons, and could have caused major destruction had it crashed into homes or buildings, said NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz.
Federal investigators will look into whether pilots followed proper procedures, whether the plane was properly maintained and whether it was properly loaded.
Old propeller planes, such as the Convair 340 and the DC-4, are still flown by air cargo companies because they are less expensive to operate than large jets. However, their numbers are dwindling because they require continual maintenance and spare parts are scarce.
Staff Researcher William Lucey and Staff Writer Patty Pensa contributed to this report.
Shannon O'Boye can be reached at soboye@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4597. Email story
WB39 report: Plane goes down in Aventura
Convair 340-70 cargo plane splashed down in an Aventura lake
(Sun-Sentinel/Mike Stocker)
Copyright © 2004,
Crews clean up fuel in lake near Aventura
Mall, plan for plane's removal
By Andrew Ryan
Staff Writer
Posted
North Miami Beach ·With the downed plane's massive tail still bobbing in Maule Lake like a giant shark fin, environmental and salvage crews hustled Sunday to soak up a fuel slick and devise a plan for pulling the 17-ton aircraft out of 14 feet of water.
The Bahamas-bound Convair 340-70
splashed into the Intracoastal lake
just south of the Aventura Mall on Saturday morning
when one of its engines failed shortly after takeoff from
The National Safety and Transportation Board is investigating.
On Sunday divers from a salvage company, Air & Sea Crash Recovery Inc., examined the wreckage up close, shutting off valves to stop oil leaks, according to Scott Wienstein, a vice president of the Davie-based company.
Crews used white absorbent booms Sunday to soak up a 500-foot circular fuel slick. The aircraft has stopped leaking, Wienstein said.
"There's been no impact to the environment," he
added while taking a break on the
When the plane hit the water its wing broke, spilling many gallons of fuel. Most of it evaporated, Wienstein said, and the remainder was soaked up with the absorbent booms.
Air & Sea was hired by the plane's insurance company, who Wienstein declined to name. Today the company plans to remove the plane's 10,500 lbs of cargo, including electronics, toys and furniture.
On Tuesday Air & Sea plans to pump 14 bags with 6,000
lbs of air inside the plane, floating the wreckage to the surface so boats can
haul it to shore. The aircraft will be lifted from the water by a crane, cut
into pieces and trucked back to
The plane, operated by Miami Air Lease, an air cargo
company, was bound for
The flight took off at
Andrew Ryan can be reached at aryan@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7922. Email story
Copyright © 2004,
Posted on
Two pilots
survive plane's lake landing
SHANNON O'BOYE and KEN KAYE Knight Ridder Tribune News Service
Alejandro Bristol, 28, brought the plane down belly first in
the middle of a lake next to
With the grace of a baseball player sliding into home plate,
the Convair 340 skipped across the water from the
west to the east for approximately 300 yards.
Rick Kellogg, a pilot who lives aboard his boat in
"Finally it clears over the tree line about 80 feet off the ground," Kellogg said. "I knew he was on one engine, and I knew where he was going.
"He had it all under control," Kellogg said. "It was beautiful. It wasn't luck. It was the pilot."
"I managed, luckily, with the help of God to get it
down," he said Saturday. "The power lines (over
Joe Alvarez, a marine patrol officer with Sunny Isles Beach
Police, maneuvered his boat close enough to the plane that
Once Miami-Dade firefighters realized
The crews contained the slick, estimated at 15,000 square yards, and then used absorbent pads to soak up the oil.
At the same time, a salvage company developed plans to remove the plane from the water. They said they probably would float the plane to the surface, pull it toward shore and either move it by barge or dismantle it and load it onto a truck. The process was expected to take 12 hours.
The doomed flight began at about
Procedure called for the pilot to give the good engine full power and "feather" the dead engine, or lock its propeller to a stop, allowing the plane to maintain altitude or climb. A propeller that is allowed to keep spinning creates drag.
However,
Tom Curran, a former cargo pilot, said a plane that has lost power and is heavy can be tricky to fly. Pilots cannot turn sharply, or they could lose speed and altitude and stall. Suddenly, the wings lose lift.
"In most airplanes, you don't want to turn unless there's a mountain out there in front of you," Curran said. "When you turn, it's like having a barn door hanging out, you lose lift. You don't have that much of a margin before you stall."
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident. The aircraft is relatively large, weighing more than 23 tons. It could have caused major destruction had it crashed into homes or buildings, said NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz.
Posted on
Cargo plane ditches in lake in
ASSOCIATED PRESS
AVENTURA,
The Miami Air Lease plane -- with the misspelled message "Eelect George W. Bush" running the length of the fuselage -- had trouble with one of its two engines shortly after takeoff, said company office manager Alina Nodarse.
The pilots tried to return the Convair
CV-340 to the Opa-locka airport about seven miles
away but couldn't make it and splashed down in
"They landed there like that to avoid the buildings," Nodarse said after the rescued pilots checked in by phone.
Pilot Alejandro Bristol and co-pilot Dennis Villavicencio climbed onto the fuselage, and one of them walked the length of the plane before being rescued by a Sunny Isles Beach police boat.
The plane ended up several hundred yards from a marina and farther away from high-rises, floating with half the fuselage and the tips of the propellers rising above the water.
'The pilot did an outstanding job in avoiding any of the structures surrounding the area," said Miami-Dade fire rescue Lt. Eric Baum. "Just a little bit of difference ... and this would not have ended on a good note."
Nodarse said both pilots are experienced and have been with the 35-year-old, family-owned cargo carrier for many years. Nodarse said the family is Republican and the pro-Bush message was painted on shortly before the election.
Crews surrounded the plane with an inflatable dike to contain any leaking oil. Trapped air kept the plane afloat and emergency crews planned to add air bags for additional buoyancy.
Nodarse believed the plane was
carrying a load of luggage to
Posted on
A cargo plane leaving
the Opa-Locka airport at
PETER ANDREW BOSCH/HERALD STAFF
Pilot Alex Bristol,
28, and his wife, Parinaz Bristol, are all smiles
after he safely crash landed a Convair cargo plane in
Mall Lake off of Biscayne Blvd. and 172 Street shortly after takeoff from Opa Locka Airport around 9 AM.
The cargo plane was going to the
JOSHUA PREZANT/FOR THE HERALD
'Amazing' pilots land in urban lake
When the engine of a cargo plane failed, the pilots were forced to make an emergency landing in an unlikely place -- a lake near the Aventura Mall, one of the most dense urban regions of Miami-Dade.
BY DAVID OVALLE, NATHALIE GOUILLOU AND SUSANNAH A. NESMITH
dovalle@herald.com
A cargo plane safely avoided rows of high-rise condos, power lines and stunned observers aboard docked boats before skidding to an emergency landing Saturday morning just south of the Aventura Mall -- in a lake.
The pilots escaped unharmed and dry as they were plucked by rescuers from atop the fuselage.
They were immediately lauded for safely downing the white
cargo plane -- emblazoned with a red Bush campaign slogan -- in one of the most dense urban regions of
''I don't consider myself a hero,'' said pilot Alejandro Bristol, calmly talking to reporters lakeside. ``It's part of the job.''
The old Convair 340, owned by
Miami Air Lease, had just taken off from
This is what the pilots, rescuers, police and witnesses said happened:
It was expected to be a routine flight to
Everything seemed routine as the 49-year-old aircraft lifted
off from
Less than an hour later, as the plane cruised about 3,000 feet about four miles off-shore, a vibration from the left wing rumbled through the plane.
The engine was failing. It shut off.
But the propeller kept spinning, known in pilot jargon as ``windmilling.''
That creates drag on the plane, making it difficult to control with only one engine. The plane turned around toward the coastline.
But they knew they couldn't make it back to Opa-locka.
''We kept our calm,''
Said
So they decided to land the plane in
Clearing the power lines was
The sight of the 79-foot cargo plane gliding down seemed surreal -- emergency dispatchers were flooded with calls.
Rick Kellogg, himself a helicopter pilot, was drinking a cup of coffee on the deck of his boat, enjoying the morning sun, when he saw the Convair clear the trees to the south.
`PRETTY AMAZING'
''It came just over the edge of the water and just settled down like it was supposed to be there,'' Kellogg said.
Frank Freeman, an employee of the
''He surfed it across the lake,'' Freeman said. ``It was pretty amazing.''
As the plane floated on the water,
They gathered their personal effects, passports and even the cargo manifest and flight log.
Rescuers quickly fished them from atop the plane.
''I was a bit surprised to see a plane that big in the water, and I was surprised to see it was still afloat,'' said Sunny Isles Beach Officer Joe Alvarez, who arrived on his boat within minutes.
``The pilot did an incredible job.''
As reporters and spectators flocked to the scene, fire officials began to work immediately to put an inflatable dike around the plane to contain any leaking fuel. The pilots immediately called their families.
'I was still sleeping, when I picked up the phone, he said, `Love, I'm right here in the water; We are safe,' '' said Ivania Villavicencio, Dennys' wife.
NOT THE FIRST
Saturday was not the first accident to involve cargo planes in recent years.
In 1997, a Fine Air DC-8 crashed minutes after takeoff from
It was not clear on Saturday what effect the cargo aboard
the Convair had as the engine sputtered, although
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident. NTSB investigator Jose Obregon said the pilot ''did a good job'' landing on the water.
The owner of Miami Air Lease, Evelio Alpizar, wearing a white guayabera shirt and black slacks, rushed to the scene.
Alpizar, a former pilot with the Cuban air force before fleeing the island in 1959, created the Miami-based company with five employees in 1961.
Though the company has owned other planes in the past, Alpizar said the 49-year-old Convair was the company's only plane now.
''And we lost it,'' he said in Spanish, looking bewildered in the afternoon sun.
As reporters gathered around Alpizar, the questions inevitably veered toward the Bush campaign slogan -- ''EELECT GEORGE W. BUSH,'' the ''R'' was missing -- painted in red across the fuselage.
It wouldn't be
''I'm Republican. I always have been,'' he said of the
airplane's pro-Bush message. ``It's about the liberty of
Crew lifts downed plane from Maule
Lake in Miami-Dade
By Tania Valdemoro
Posted
Officials began the removal process at about
Five days after it landed belly-first in the lake it was out.
Steve Smalley, president of salvage company Air & Sea
Crash Recovery, said crews worked into the night to remove the Convair 340-70, which has been submerged in 14 feet of
water since its pilot made an emergency landing in
"Everybody -- the residents, police, the Coast Guard -- wanted it out days ago," he said.
After the plane was on the barge, crews would cut the plane into pieces: its wings, the nose and the back section. Smalley said he did not know how long the recovery process would take.
When Air & Sea Crash Recovery tried earlier this week to tug the plane to a nearby dock so they could use a crane to pull it out, the dock's owner protested. The owner was concerned about liability issues and damage to the dock, the Coast Guard said.
Officials at Miami Air Lease, the company that owns the plane, said they were relieved the end was near.
"The towing company has acted super fast and kept us informed every step of the way," said Office Manager Alina Nodarse. "We're quite happy. Everyone involved has been wonderful."
Tania Valdemoro can be reached at tvaldemoro@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5006.
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