Plane Crashes Into Yard - Rescue Caught on Video

[sardak]

A fixed video camera caught the crash of a plane into a tree, the reactions of the residents, the rescue of the pilot and the FD putting out the fire. Everything you need for this week's squadron meeting - AE, ES, safety, PT. This occurred in Foley, Alabama earlier this week.

https://youtu.be/2HcCtxPoUUg?t=25s

Mike

[ProdigalJim]

Wow, how rare is THAT to have an entire incident captured that way?

CAP observations: stabilized (or, unstabilized) approach? Wx didn't look to be a factor. Wreckage pattern...post-crash fire would have eliminated a lot of "wreck" if this had been in the middle of nowhere. Best to look for the smoking hole in the canopy. Not a lot of spread -- the plane was flying and then it wasn't.

Ex-firefighter observations: they looked to be on-scene pretty darn quick. Good on them. Why not flow foam? Did I see only one responding engine and one rescue/squad/whatever you call the rolling toolbox in your jurisdiction? Fairfax County that would have drawn three engines, two trucks, a foam unit, two medic units, a couple of BLS ambulances, PIOs, some safety buggies and more white hats than you can shake a stick at...  Did I miss it in the video or did it look as if that poor dude was advancing the hose line without any help from the rear for quite awhile? And...did the engine officer do a walk around scene size-up?

General observations: the homeowner moved his car before calling 9-1-1? Wow.

The pilot who got out...did he make it out on his own? I didn't see anyone go claw him out.

[arajca]

Did I miss it in the video or did it look as if that poor dude was advancing the hose line without any help from the rear for quite awhile?

It looks like it and it looks like the hose was charged!

[sardak]

From more reading about this incident, the plane was apparently having problems before and during takeoff. The crash occurred on the property of a towing company. Another camera has video and audio of the woman who runs out, then back in, calling 911. So I think the call was made before or during the time the guy moves the car.

The fire response looked light relative to my area, too. There definitely would have been more equipment and people, including a brush truck or two making a cross-country advance. Yes, that poor firefighter was dragging a charged line by himself.

It looks like the pilot got out on his own, because you see one guy run in from the right, then the guy from the towing company run in followed by someone else. I think they must have seen the pilot. The group comes out with the pilot, walking on his own, pretty quickly after running in.

Mike

[LSThiker]

It looks like the pilot got out on his own, because you see one guy run in from the right, then the guy from the towing company run in followed by someone else. I think they must have seen the pilot. The group comes out with the pilot, walking on his own, pretty quickly after running in.

Around the 2:30 mark correct?  A guy from the screen center and two guys from the right enter, four people walk out.  I too think the fourth person is the pilot. 

What surprises me the most is that within 30 seconds of the crash, a man thought it is was more important to move his car rather than check on any pilot or passengers trapped inside the aircraft. 

But then again, a recent study that was just released a few weeks ago in the American Journal of Public Health found only 2.57% of Americans (or 1 out of 39 people) would stop and help a person in medical distress.

[KASSRCrashResearch]

What surprises me the most is that within 30 seconds of the crash, a man thought it is was more important to move his car rather than check on any pilot or passengers trapped inside the aircraft. 

You also have to factor in that, to a lot of folks, a plane crash is a "Well, they are all dead" scenario.  I work in aviation crash survivability research and that's a ridiculously common attitude.

But then again, a recent study that was just released a few weeks ago in the American Journal of Public Health found only 2.57% of Americans (or 1 out of 39 people) would stop and help a person in medical distress.

As someone with a lengthy background in EMS, I can point out two things that a lot of folks overlook: 1) that having everyone stop and help really doesn't do much good since even in a crowd of first aiders you really only need one or two people to do something and actually having a crowd on scene is usually more of a hindrance than a help AND 2) I have to really stop and think to recall a person who was truly seriously ill or injured in a public place who actually *needed* first aid wasn't being attended to by a friend, family member or bystander upon the arrival of EMS, fire or law enforcement when it was safe for someone to do so (not in an area with an active shooter, in the middle of a highway with traffic zipping by, etc). 

Plus, honestly, the circumstances where outcome is truly dependent on someone IMMEDIATELY rendering care are pretty few (cardiac arrest, choking, arterial bleeding above the knee or elbow, etc) so in most cases the best course of action doesn't require someone anyone to directly provide care.  More often than not, they are simply a pain in the a** more than they are a help especially in poor urban neighborhoods or in trailer parks where we used to jokingly call them the "Fellows of the American College of Bystander Physicians" because they acted as a form of self-appointed medical control with such as "Hurry yo' a** up!" or "What are you waiting for?".  And that's said by someone who wrote a very lengthy article on tourniquets a few years back that was actually cited as part of the push to increase their use by first aiders so I am a big advocate of first aid interventions in those circumstances where moments matter .  The issue is that with most cases, there's nothing immediately life threatening.   If anyone wants to check the tourniquet article out or if you're just a history geek or having trouble falling asleep and need something to help you do so, here you go:  http://wjes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1749-7922-2-28

Nearly every one of those studies has some sort of methodological flaw and are often more reflective of the biases of the authors than anything else.  It's one of the major hurdles in doing any sort of behavioral research that is to be broadly extrapolated from.  It makes a lot of great sensationalist headlines but it probably doesn't really tell us much because they are often representative of very narrow circumstances.  That or they are out and out garbage which seems to be the case with the paper in question.

The AJPH article has quite a few flaws.  The biggest that I will point out is using a minority of reports from a dataset that is....pretty incomplete; they like to say that they have 52 states and territories participating but not everyone is submitting data and what data they do get varies wildly from state to state.  For example, the variable they use "prior aid" is only reported for around 70% of data cases.  (see http://www.nemsis.org/reportingTools/reports/nationalEMSDatabaseDescription.html  Comparison of NEMSIS compliant state datasets).  A 2011 survey (the year this study looked at) by one of the supporting agencies found that while 88% of states were 'compliant' with the NEMSIS standards, only 22% of those states were including all of their runs.  (source: http://www.jems.com/articles/2011/11/nasemso-survey-provides-snapshot-ems-ind.html)  See a problem here?  The AJPH study looked at 22487 cases which seems like a lot until you figure that in 2011 there were 36,698,670 EMS run resulting in 28,004,624 transports (source: previously cited JEMS article). 

So....even if were talking about just those people sick or drunk enough to have to be transported, they are making a conclusion based on something on the order of 0.0008% of EMS runs.  If I am off by a couple of decimal points, my apologies since I did the division longhand while suffering a headache and it doesn't matter since they only looked at a fraction of a percent of the runs in the US. A significant portion of EMS agencies do as many runs in two weeks as these two social scientists think warrants a dramatic conclusion (source: http://www.naemt.org/about_ems/statistics.aspx)  Doesn't seem so weighty now does it?

I will also point out that unless someone was doing CPR or such, it's unlikely that it would be mentioned in the run report the datasets are derived from.  Stopping and comforting a person- which is all most medical patients are going to need prior to EMS arrival- thus would not be reported in the database.  THAT is the most likely explanation for the seemingly frighteningly low level of intervention.

Sorry if this all was overly technical.

[foo]

My take is the guy who went to move his car may have been thinking about getting it out of the way for emergency vehicles he knew would be on scene soon. It also looks like the woman may have told him she already called or was going to call 911.

Also, if the car guy had run towards the aircraft instead of moving his car, he would have been lit up by the leaking fuel that ignited moments later between the building and crash site.

[Hummingbird]

A fixed video camera caught the crash of a plane into a tree, the reactions of the residents, the rescue of the pilot and the FD putting out the fire. Everything you need for this week's squadron meeting - AE, ES, safety, PT. This occurred in Foley, Alabama earlier this week.

https://youtu.be/2HcCtxPoUUg?t=25s

Mike

Wow, that's a one in a million shot! This is definitely going to be coming up at the squadron, thanks!

[Live2Learn]

A fixed video camera caught the crash of a plane into a tree, the reactions of the residents, the rescue of the pilot and the FD putting out the fire. Everything you need for this week's squadron meeting - AE, ES, safety, PT. This occurred in Foley, Alabama earlier this week.

https://youtu.be/2HcCtxPoUUg?t=25s

Mike

Incredible.  The fire spread very rapidly from the aircraft to the surrounding grounds.  A good training video for anyone who approaches a crashed aircraft.  The time available to escape the wreck or to help survivors before a fire erupts may be short.