He had an engine failure so did a forced landing on a beach, he fixed his fuel valve and when he went to takeoff he got caught in the surf. No one hurt.

 

http://youtu.be/khkSXrQNtWQ

Nice one!

 

Actually I was just about to post on this same topic.

 

Here's the BBC's take on it...

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25685529

 

 

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Now that was a expensive trip...

This one even reached Norwegian news media... Live and learn!

Kinda obvious that the water wasn't a good place to take off from.. Maybe he flew amphibous planes in WW2. 

"Poor judgment" days (we all have them) and aviation can be very bad, he was lucky to walk away during one such day.

There are daily commercial flights from Hervey Bay Airport to Fraser Island that land on Seventy-Five Mile Beach and they do use Jabiru's in those operations. It is just this guy had never done a beach landing and takeoff before. He was probably looking too far down the beach and didn't see the surf out the side of the aircraft.

 

Here is a video showing the commercial ops in Australia:

....He was probably looking too far down the beach and didn't see the surf out the side of the aircraft.

 

 

Peripheral awareness is obviously needed in both aircarft flyng and car driving.

Let's hope this guy's driving is better than his flying.  If, for instance, he mounted a pavement in his car and knocked over a child, I'm sure the police wouldnt accept an excuse that he was looking too far down the road and didn't see the child out the side of the car.  Likewise ..no excuse for foolishly running into the water methinks.

If, for instance, he mounted a pavement in his car and knocked over a child, I'm sure the police wouldnt accept an excuse that he was looking too far down the road and didn't see the child out the side of the car

Driving a car and flying an air plane are two different things. I recall my flight instructor always saying look further down the runway when taking off. Reality is their are no children playing around near a runway.

 

He had never done a beach landing or departure before as this was a forced landing. He took his chances without training and got caught in the surf. He learned the hard way.

 

Remember New Zealand is a bit of a different place and children were on the beach and were also very happy spectators to this event but he was in no risk of hitting any children as police were present and cordoned off an area.

 

Beach landings and take-offs do happen in both New Zealand and Australia as I am sure a few other places in the world. I have another friend who is a pilot in Australia that landed a Cessna 172 on a highway in the north to refuel at a local gas station as he was getting low. There happened to be a police officer in that gas station at the time so he wrote a ticket for driving an unregistered vehicle on an Australian highway, but he was allowed to depart again after he got his ticket. Crazy stuff like that does happen in these parts  :lol: