I worked for an outfit that uses helicopters for water sampling and other environmental testing. Before anybody flies on that helicopter, they must take and pass Ditch and Dive Training. This is a hands on class where you are strapped into a helicopter mock-up and crashed with great force into a swimming pool. In order to pass the class you have to unbuckle, open the door, and get out within a certain amount of time. If you are unable to get out, there is a rescue diver on the apparatus to stuff a regulator into your mouth and haul you out of the water.
I have known several people who took the training, and they all said that they were shocked with the severity and violence of the impact, and it took a few seconds to collect themselves to exit the helicopter. They also said that without advance training and a firmly fastened seat-belt, there is no way they were going to get out of that apparatus without help.
We did wind up dropping a helicopter into the water a few years ago, and all of our trained crewmen got out safely, so we know the training works.
I dare say the pilot of this chopper had received similar training at some point. Obviously, the passengers had not.
Well look at that a sensible remark in regard to this crash and thread. Nice job
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Trained, perhaps, but “Sully” he is not!
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It's done in a swimming pool, usually with 10-15 trainees and at least two instructors.
You're put in a helicopter mock-up with seats, aviation style seat belts, small windows with pop-out capability - if you can unlatch and hit them hard enough.
You're flipped over in this thing, and subsequently under water. With your seat belt fastened, upside down, and an incomprehensible amount of water jacked up your nose in the process.
You do a silent 5 count while you are upside down and dizzy underwater, holding your breath. Because you wouldn't want to pop out in record time, get your head above water, and have the still spinning helicopter blades decapitate you.
After your 5-Count, you unlock the seat belt. If you inflate your air vest at that point, it will pin you against the underwater roof of the passenger compartment, and you will drown.
So you pop out a window, release the seat belt, swim out - and live. Unless the water is on fire from ignited aviation fuel, but there is a technique to survive that, too.
You do this multiple times, sometimes pretending you are in an inner / aisle seat, and you have to feel your way to an escape window, and pop out through that - if the guy in front of you has already exited the mock-up.
Instructors are there underwater with you to drag you to the surface, if you look like you're panicking, and about to drown during training.
Once the instructors are happy that you've mastered all this, they blindfold you - because you may crash at night, and you have to be able to do all of this by feel. And so you repeat the process several more times, each time blindfolded.
This is about the LEAST amount of fun you can have in a swimming pool for at least two hours. But this training has been proven to save lives. I just pray I never have to do it for real - 80 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico!
If you've never had this type of training, realistically, you have practically no chance at all to survive a helicopter crash into water.
This was an open-door “Photography Tour” where the passengers wear both seat belts and 8-point harnesses so they can lean out for photos. The harnesses did include emergency knives for cutting the restraint but in the shock of the moment it’s hardly surprising they were unable to free themselves.