Forced Down in Greenland-Pick Five

[WETSU]

Okay everyone, its time for another critical thinking exercise.

While flying over the north western coast of Greenland, the small plane your are piloting experiences engine trouble and you are forced to put it down on top of a glacier. You get off a quick distress call that goes unanswered. You make a good wheels up landing, skidding to a stop atop a 300 feet deep crevasse
But the plane is teetering and about to fall into the crevasse. Your location, near as you can tell is about 3-5 miles from the coast to the west. If the skies were clear you could see the north of Baffin Bay. Elevation is about 3000 feet above sea level. The snow is about 12 inches deep and powdery. Under it is ice, a thousand feet of ancient ice. There are crevasses everywhere, many are hidden. It is November. The time of day is 1300 hours. You filed a flight plan, but it covered a lot of miles and you are not expected in for another 3 hours, before they even notice you are gone. The weather is overcast with low clouds, and light snow, 20 knot winds. Current temp is 25F. Forecast calls for temps in the 20s during the day and minus 10F at night. Cloudy with light snow the next 3 days.
You are wearing a Gen 2 ECWCS parka over a fleece jacket and midweight polypro long sleeved T. Pants are insulated Carharts over polypro long johns. Boots are decent Pac boots with smart wool socks. You have on intermediate insulated aviator gloves and a wool watch cap. In your pockets are your wallet, house and car keys and a folding knife. You are wearing a G shock watch.
You get to grab 5 things from the plane before it tumbles into the crevasse. Assumptions: Everything is fully operational. Gun is loaded. Batteries are full charge, fuel bottle is full and fresh etc.

Gear List:
MSR fuel bottle with white gas
Large marine orange smoke grenade
2400 calorie rations
Penflare with 6 red flares
Leatherman multitool
USGI lensatic compass.
HAM radio
Beretta M9
Princeton tec EOS headlamp
Full canteen and steel cup
Space blanket
24 Lifeboat matches w/striker
Rescue strobe
Starflash signal mirror
10x25 binoculars
75 feet dynamic climbing rope w/ 2 locking biners and a ATC.
Packet of red koolaid.
USGI patrol sleeping bag, rated to 50 degrees.

What would you grab and why?

 

[rockhopper46038]

Space blanket
USGI patrol sleeping bag
Full canteen and steel cup
Packet of red kool-aid
ham radio

space blanket in conjunction with the sleeping bag will go a long way toward staving off hypothermia
full canteen and steel cup, to melt snow in for water for both drinking and to make the Kool-aid (melted using body heat)
red Kool aid can be used to make a pretty good amount of red dye, which can be used to stain the snow at high contrast against the glacier for aid in spotting me
ham radio in case I can get lucky and bounce a signal to someone on the coast, assuming a 5 watt radio.

 

[armedindy]

full canteen, pen flare, ham radio, rope, sleeping bag..............always need water, id rather not depend on the probability of people looking down to see me so i like the flares, radio in hopes of reaching someone(u never know), rope to traverse the crazy ice and not fall to my death, and sleeping bag to hopefully stay warm through the night

 

[catfishjn69]

Ham radio- used connect with rescuers when theyare close by assuming it only has a short range can be used even if people cant see you. like in the dark also you can communicate with them to drop supplies if they cannot immediatly rescue you.

75 feet dynamic climbing rope w/ 2 locking biners and a ATC- use it for cordage and to try to keep from falling in crevasse never tried but I have seen demonstrations of tying knots in the rope so if you fall in a crevasse the knots would catch in the snow and maybe keep you from totaly going in and hopefully you could climb back out(never done this sio I dont know if it works but the principal sounds right) pluss at being 3000 feet above sea level and only 3-5 miles from the bay means you wil be doing some climbing down if you go to the bay

Space blanket- to try to use to keep warm or as a reflector for heat for fire and shelter plus the orange will stan out for signaling

Penflare with 6 red flares- would use to signal and to start a fire fire will be very important in this situation and you can only afford to use 1 flare for fire the rest need to be saved for signaling

Full canteen and steel cup-water and container you will still need to be hydrated you can use the cup for digging to make a snow shelter

my assumptions were that i was in an area that you could find trees to burn to keep you warm even if you had to walk to the bay. the biggest question is do you leave the immediate area first? how do you try to leave clues to where you went if you do leave? how long til you make that decision? it is going to get cold and it is already 1300 and it will be 1600 b4 anyone even suspects you are missing by 1700 it will be dark and you are going to need shelter very quick.
there are some unknowns here such as polar bears/ predaters so you might want the m-9

 

[.356luger]

blanket- shelter/wind sheild water collection,

compass- navigation in a white out will be difficult holding a western path until you can see the coast is importand then holding a south heading towards population centers.

strobe long battery life night and day signal life any heat it produces might save your fingers

sleeping bag stave off hypothermia

this would be very difficult to last in greenland for lack of a better term sucks no trees just ice and snow no real people to speak of (under 100000 on the island)

 

[The Bubba Effect]

Space Blanket: Don't want to freeze to death, looks like the type that is reflective on one side red/orange on the other, can be used to signal.
Patrol Bag: Really don't want to freeze to death, should help prolong that.
Ham: Try to raise somebody somewhere to get help or communicate directly with Search and Rescue
Strobe: Hope rescue sees it at night
Signal Mirror: Try to signal rescuers/anyone, give me something to do during the day while I'm waiting.


I don't know enough about Greenland to try to walk out, plus the crevices. I figure I will probably freeze to death before I starve to death and I can improvise a cup for melting water out of the space blanket. I figure a guy would try to dig/scrape/pile some type of shelter and crawl in, putting out the strobe at night, using the ham as best you can. If you see something in the daytime, try to flash it with the mirror.

 

[DanO]

Never been to Greenland, but been in Canada, Alaska, Norway, Sweden and Russia. If I understand this I have 3 miles to the coast and I am on a Glacier. So staying put up there in -10 degrees with no fuel to burn is not a good option. Gotta make the coast and try to find some fuel, water and signal for help. Hopefully I would find some fuel to melt snow and get warm and dry out my clothes/gear. In that environment your clothes will get damp from you living in them and working; your sleeping bag also, so you need to have an external heat source. So my priority would be to get safely off the glacier while there was still light, following my filght path back to the coast as near as possible to the coast where I would no be sitting on a big ice cube and might find fuel, water, and food (the ocean sets a table 2x a day). If there was not enough light left in the day to see, I would trade the sleeping bag for a headlamp, as my big priority would be not to spend the night on the glacier with no fuel in -10 degrres. SO...

Space Blanket, - Wind shield, reflector, ground/rain snow cover, May be able to melt snow in it via sun on a sunny day. Signalling.
Sleeping bag - insulation, tinder
Penflare - Signalling, fire starter when you get to the coast if you can find any driftwood
Rope and Carabiners - Get off the ice in one piece, cordage on the coast
Canteen and cup - will need water and to melt snow.

 

[Davis0023]

Note: I posted before reading others to keep this real.

Signal mirror(sm)
Rope (rp)
Canteen (Cn)
Binoculars (bi)
Latherman ( lm)

The signal mirror :for signaling help. 3k up is a lot of good sun and miles aim. And can be seen. Long way.

Rope :to make a safety harness so I don't fall Into a carvass(sp) hope it works. Saw it on man v wild. It can and will have possible multiple used. From shelter at might to getting food.

Canteen to melt snow for water, either body beat or fire. Use cup for pine needle tea, or digging out my igloo type shelter. Should I choose. To made a small candle sized fire in the igloo to up the temp in igloo an little more. The cup can contain my fire.

Binoculars. Obvious use is looking around for help, avoid deep carvasses, indentifying predators or seeing food(Game).
And using a lens with the sun to start fire,
The leather men , many possible uses. Knie for branches of shelter leathers for cute or fuel. Get sap for fuel , sharpen stick for spear type hunting / weaponry. A d made snow googles if need be.
, many uses. Get sticks to mark arrows in to for signal and direction I travel from air.

This is what I would do of top of head.

 

[netsecurity]

I'd plan on being rescued within 24-48 hours, so not worry much about food or security. My priority would be LIGHT and HEAT since there are only six hours of sunlight per day, I wouldn't plan on using daytime signals, like smoke or especially mirrors (on shiny ice?), since location at night should be far easier. Also, traveling is not only dangerous, but would likely make rescue more difficult, so I would certainly want to stay put. Things I would take, in this order:


+SLEEPING BAG
+RESCUE STROBE (I'd use this as my light too, if that weren't possible, definitely grab the headlight too)
HAM RADIO
CANTEEN (melt snow using body heat)
SPACE BLANKET (probably as a liner under the bag to keep it dry I would think)

I suspect the first two would be most important and I could probably swap out the last three with other stuff--like a headlamp--and do fine...?

 

[Blackhawk2001]

I'm not playing that game. If I were flying over inhospitable terrain, MY survival kit would be complete and I'd grab it out of the aircraft as soon as it stopped. The pistol, flares, emergency blanket, pocket tool (and at least 4 other knives), matches, lighter, signal mirror, and a water bottle or water bladder would be in my pockets or otherwise fastened to my person. Yes, I would have duplicates in the survival kit as well.

 

[avboiler11]

Critical thinking:

Any pilot flying a small single engine piston airplane over that terrain, in that area, in that weather, is an epic dumbass. ESPECIALLY if they don't have all their gear in a bag, close at hand, ready to grab.

Sorry, the ATP side of my brain at work...

 

[SSGSAD]

I'm not playing that game. If I were flying over inhospitable terrain, MY survival kit would be complete and I'd grab it out of the aircraft as soon as it stopped. The pistol, flares, emergency blanket, pocket tool (and at least 4 other knives), matches, lighter, signal mirror, and a water bottle or water bladder would be in my pockets or otherwise fastened to my person. Yes, I would have duplicates in the survival kit as well.

MY thought ..... I would be as prepared as possible .... and work as hard as I could, to survive, and be found .....

 

[comanche]

As a CFII I would stay with the plane and have everything available. Verify the ELT is working/ ON with the radio. Then be prepared to signal the rescue aircraft.

 

[IndyDave1776]

I'm not playing that game. If I were flying over inhospitable terrain, MY survival kit would be complete and I'd grab it out of the aircraft as soon as it stopped. The pistol, flares, emergency blanket, pocket tool (and at least 4 other knives), matches, lighter, signal mirror, and a water bottle or water bladder would be in my pockets or otherwise fastened to my person. Yes, I would have duplicates in the survival kit as well.

NO FAIR! You were in the military and learned how it's done properly and don't have to guess!

 

[The Bubba Effect]

As a CFII I would stay with the plane and have everything available. Verify the ELT is working/ ON with the radio. Then be prepared to signal the rescue aircraft.

I don't know much about airplanes, how do you think it would hold up going down the crevice?

 

[avboiler11]

I don't know much about airplanes, how do you think it would hold up going down the crevice?

Not well.

The best move is to not put yourself in a position to have the only engine on your spamcan fail over the most inhospitable terrain on the planet.

 

[sloughfoot]

Not well.

The best move is to not put yourself in a position to have the only engine on your spamcan fail over the most inhospitable terrain on the planet.

I have always wanted to fly to great britain and beyond. The op fails to recognise that any survival gear is in a bag next to the pilot because of the ferry tank. I am staying near the aircraft and the elt.

 

[Sailor]

I will play, since the exercise is about critical thinking and not reality.

Ok, I am on a glacier that extends to the coast 3-5 miles. My immediate concerns are hypothermia and getting found.

I will take:

Sleeping bag
Space Blanket
Strobe
Ham Radio
Pen Flares.

Did not choose the signal mirror because the forecast is cloudy.
Nothing to use as fuel for a fire. unless I use something on the list to burn.
I will freeze before I die of dehydration or starvation.

 

[GIJEW]

I'm taking: sleeping bag, space blanket, food, strobe, and radio. It's november. at that time of year it's mostly night; I'm surrounded by crevasses by myself which limits the ropes usefulness; However, people will notice I'm missing and will have an idea of where to look. I'm sheltering in place.
#1&2 stay warm: bag&space blanket. The blanket can insulate me from the ice below and be a wind break wrapped around me.
#3 food. It will keep my metabolism up so I can generate my own heat.
#4 strobe. without it, they would NEVER find me.
#5 radio. I'm near enough to the coast that I MIGHT pick up a ship.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

I wish to publicly apologize to WETSU for screwing with his thought problem.

Yeah, okay, I know I blew the "theoretical" and "critical thinking" portion of the problem - and it's certainly a good problem. But I would think that, besides being educated in the means and techniques of survival, a primary concept would be to either - as other aviators have noted - not getting yourself into the situation in the first place (not always possible) or, if you HAVE to be in a potentially perilous situation, planning for as many eventualities as possible. Since for aviation, a forced landing is ALWAYS possible, it's incumbent on the planner to ensure that the appropriate means for survival are available. For any aviator who has ever been in a survival situation, that means keeping the basic needs for survival either fastened to your person (the reason why military aviators wear survival vests) or having it AT HAND while you're evacuating the aircraft. Because if you leave any survival equipment behind, you likely will not get a chance to go back for it.

The same argument can be made for everyday life, whether you have the "10 essentials" in your car, on your person, or in your luggage. Plan for emergencies. Equip yourself as well as possible under every circumstance.