TBM Avenger in the drink off FL beach, pilot OK. Hopefully they can salvage the plane...


https://www.foxnews.com/us/wwii-era-...-landing-ocean

Salt water and aluminum airframes don't fare well. Its going to be a rebuild, at best.

Nice ditching, though.

No helmet, no life vest and ditching dangerously close to beach goers in the water.

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I won't QB the off-airport technique as long as it ends well.

But lack of basic safety gear in a plane like that does make you wonder.

Who wears a helmet in those things? They didn’t even wear helmets back in WW2.

​​​​​​​Helmets in modern fighters aren’t even there to save you in a crash.

They wore leather ones (same with football at the time). Mainly for bailout vice a crash, but still. That was then, this is now. Perhaps there was an operational reason for no helmet or life vest. I'd sure wear both in a warbird if I could.

It wasn't a modern fighter.

Yes but those were more or less just a platform for headsets and oxygen masks. I thought rigid helmets for bailout considerations/protection didn’t really take off until the Korean War timeframe.

Do people wear helmets in WW2 fighters these days? I guess I’ve never seen it.

EDIT: upon further research, it appears that some do.

Say it ain’t so.

(Filler).....

Most do flying warbirds or aerobatics.
It will certainly be helpful in avoiding getting knocked unconscious in a crash or emergency landing and not being able to extract yourself.

The Cocoa Beach airshow is flown entirely over water if I’m not mistaken.
https://cocoabeachairshow.com/
Having the appropriate emergency gear would be appropriate.
I would expect the Orlando FSDO to look into this.

I'm sure they'll look at the event as will NTSB, but I don't think there's an actual mandate for safety gear in warbirds above and beyond what's required under 91.

I took the lack of helmet/life vest as a possible flag on the operator's attitude and approach to safety (a la collins foundation). But that's just gut reaction from the photo.


They did recover the plane, if nothing else it still has a future as a static display...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i27CN9uVIS4