I had what’s very likely the scariest, most humbling experience of my life yesterday.
I felt what it’d be like to survive a helicopter crash in water, then have to swim my way out.
It’s part of the training to be a regular reporter in Chopper 9, CTV British Columbia’s single engine Bell 206 L4 Longranger helicopter specially outfitted for news gathering in B.C.’s Lower Mainland.
The first step to flying regularly in “the bird” as we often call it is a one-hour orientation by one of the Talon pilots who operates the helicopter for us. Guiv Nabavi made sure I knew all the important things -- which basically boils down to: “don’t touch anything but the door handle and your headphones.”
Even though we sit to the left of the pilot in the front of the aircraft it’s so noisy that I need headphones with a microphone in order to communicate with my pilot and the CTV cameraman in his area behind me.
Pete Cline, Gary Barndt and Murray Titus are our three rock star photographers that take turns operating what’s essentially a remote-control TV news camera mounted on the front of Chopper 9. They see the world through a lens and they do an amazing job capturing the images in such a way that you feel like you’re watching the action yourself.
Do you know the number one rule of getting into a helicopter? I thought it was to duck down as you’re approaching it, but it’s much more important to know you never walk toward or around the tail of the aircraft. As Nabavi told me, the tail rotor is the “thing that’s going to take your head off.”
Ducking is important when the main overhead rotor is engaged, but that back rotor is essentially invisible when it’s running so you can’t tell how big it is or how close you are. Things like learning how to buckle up the four-point seat belt over an aviation life jacket, how to read and write my notes in the dark, how to activate the emergency beacon and what kind of flying patterns to expect round out the orientation session.
There’s a particular art to reporting in the helicopter itself. While we’re directly above whatever’s happening -- much of the floor is made of glass for easy viewing.
We’re also 1,500 feet or more above the fire or motor vehicle accident or whatever we’re talking about which can make it hard to make out details. That’s why we have a special little monitor mounted to the side of the centre console showing us what our cameraman is filming, which is usually zoomed in to show a tremendous amount of detail. So when we’re reporting live on the air we’re constantly looking at our notes, the little four-inch monitor and the earth below us in what’s a bit of a juggling act.
A routine day on a chopper reporting shift often includes waiting for the weather to clear enough to fly safely (which may or may not happen during the winter), standing by for a scheduled “live hit” into one of our news broadcasts, or zipping down to the airport and hopping on in a breaking news situation. We’re prepped and ready for all those scenarios.
But despite the extensive training our pilots receive and the meticulous attention to detail when it comes to maintenance and upkeep, there’s always a chance something will go wrong and we’ll find ourselves in a situation where specialized training can make all the difference. That’s why the photographers and reporters who regularly work from Chopper 9 are sent for Pro Aviation Safety Training’s “Aircraft Ditching, Underwater Egress and Sea Survival Course.”
The day-long course starts out in a classroom with examples of past crashes and hard landings as well as various survival basics like how to brace for impact and the importance of establishing a routine to follow in the event of an emergency egress. Trainer John Heiler was really great explaining how long a person can survive in cold water, why we should try to keep our shoes on even though it makes it harder to swim and keeping calm even when panic starts to set in.
Where it gets really interesting is the public swimming pool where the pilots, journalists, nurses and other people taking the course jumped in fully-clothed to experience what it’s like to try and put on a life jacket while trying to stay afloat weighed down by all that clothing and footwear. It wasn’t easy, especially since I haven't gone swimming in years. Then we tried flipping a life raft right-side up and getting in as well as helping an injured person through the water. Then the real tough stuff began.
Pro Aviation has a custom-built cage that rolls into the pool and has a very basic cockpit on the inside. It has seatbelts and optional “doors” to practice the escape procedure once an aircraft is underwater.
So here’s what we did: we climbed in, fastened the seatbelt (tucking the extra fabric under the belt so it wouldn’t get in our way) and rehearsed reaching for the door handle with the left hand, then the door frame with the right, then unbuckling our seatbelt. Then John and his wife, Jackie, counted us down before flipping the cage so we had to do it all upside down and underwater.
I took a deep breath and before I knew it I was in the drink. I’m usually a pretty calm person, but once I was in with water up my nose and disoriented from rolling I started to panic despite the training. I opened my mouth and barely waited for the cage to come to a full stop before reaching, grabbing, unbuckling and getting the heck out of there. My hands were shaking and I was pretty rattled.
It took a while to slow down my heart rate, but within a few minutes it was my turn to go back in for the next level of difficulty -- a plastic door with a standard aviation release handle to actually experience unlocking the door. That went a lot better and I was feeling pretty confident, that is, until the next level.
The two-person cage was flipped and we were supposed to try our exit only to find one of them blocked forcing us to use the opposite exit – not knowing if my or my partner’s exit would work. John and Jackie know it’s a stressful situation and never want to make anyone do something they were uncomfortable with so I asked to know in advance which door would not open. That would be mine, so I’d have to go out the other door after a Talon pilot who was in the same session. To my embarrassment, despite the previous run going smoothly, I panicked and ended up going out my door, which they open after a few seconds of blocking for safety reasons – with a lungful of water.
We were supposed to immediately go for a second time with the pilot following me through on my side, but they gave me a break and I ended up going back by myself to try getting out the opposite side door. I made it and was so relieved I managed it, even though I needed some extra help to get there.
The final round we were blindfolded and flipped over before going out our own door -- which was somehow so much easier than going out the opposite side. That’s when I realized how much I’d practiced the standard exit and felt comfortable with it, even after just a few rounds.
I never want to have to use that underwater training and barely slept that night thinking of having to do that with cold, dark water rushing in, the aircraft tumbling through hundreds of meters of water before coming to a stop (rather than a meter and half we were in), after having survived the impact. Honestly, even writing about that scenario makes my chest feel tight. But I’m so glad I have the knowledge and training to have a fighting chance of surviving should that unlikely event come to pass.
