If the pilot had used the plane’s PA system to brief the passengers after the engine stopped, his instructions would have been heard on the video right along with the cockpit alarm. Unexpectedly, one hears no pilot briefing or instructions about any water landing or to don any PFDs.
Another confirmation of the absence of such a briefing is that four of the first five passengers to exit the plane weren’t wearing life jackets, the 5th didn’t inflate his, and the sixth was carrying his on his way out of the craft!
That passenger in the lower right picture is the videographer. He might have been highly stressed to forget to inflate his lifejacket; he’s apparently relaxing by listening to his tunes—in mono. Or … maybe not.
In its Final Report, the NTSB faulted the pilot’s terse pre-flight briefing, of “You know the procedures!” That NTSB Report noted that if that briefing had been properly given, it might have allowed passengers more easily and quickly to find their proper life jackets and might have prevented Ms Fuddy, the reported fatality, not to have had to use an infant life jacket. Her reported stress, fear and hyperventilation was noted by the medical examiner as having given rise to a heart arrhythmia as her Cause of Death.
As yet, The Fuddy Estate has not leveled Complaint against the Pilot.
If there was ever a case of claimed pilot-briefings of his passengers that went seriously wrong, this was it!
Fred, I think the essence of this event had nothing to do with following correct safety regulations. ('Zatchu behind Gandalf?)
In the photograph here it's obvious at least four people were not wearing a life jacket.
The photographer Fuentes LATER had his jacket inflated.
Looks like the pilot is still swimming without a jacket, I think that's him in the middle in the background with some of his white shirt showing. It looks like a fiasco - certainly no indication they had any warning. But what is one to think when the pilot himself doesn't think to grab a jacket on his way out of the aircraft?
Everything you are reporting is fascinating.
Furthermore the plane was not as 300 ft. when the supposed engine problem happened it was more like 1,100 feet. At the air speed it was at I thin 80 or 90 knots it could easily have made it to runway #5 nearby. But instead the pilot chose to ditch the plane where the story takes a really wild turn.
