How To Survive A Plane Crash

I got onto the left-hand wing, clambering over the door lip, and stood momentarily. I jumped from an estimated height of about fifteen feet.

I can remember going to Luton Airport as a kid. You could get quite close to the activity and hear the pilots doing engine tests and throttling down the runway. The noise and the smell of kerosene were captivating. It was during this time that my desire to learn to fly was born.

I had been with an instructor for about three weeks, with a couple of different instructors, and everything was going very well. I had been solo for about eight days. It was one of those bluebird days—the sun was shining, birds were twittering. I was just thinking about what was ahead. As far as I was concerned, it was just another day solo, building up my experience before heading back to the UK with my ambition complete.

I went full throttle, starting to take off, and once I reached a thousand feet, I pulled back gently on the throttle to level off. I could then cruise around and do what I needed to do.

Then, I saw something that made me look twice—a thin streak of yellow-orange flame. I looked again, and it was real. Flames were emanating from the front portion of the fuselage, starting to lap around my feet and ankles inside the cockpit. This was no drill; it was an emergency. I needed to get the aircraft down immediately. My heart was pounding in my chest. There I was, a thousand feet up with nowhere to go.

People have asked if I had a parachute. In a light aircraft, you don’t wear one. If I didn’t get out of the burning cockpit quickly, I wasn’t going to make it. The only option was to try to get out of the cockpit early, but I needed to get the aircraft to a safe level to have any chance of pulling that off.

My mind flicked back to one of the US instructors who said, “Above all, if there’s an emergency and you’ve got a problem, fly the damn aircraft.” Those words echoed in my memory. I kept my left hand on the flight control stick and my right hand on the throttle, carefully knocking off the power to reduce airspeed.

As I approached the active runway, I watched the altimeter spin down—900 feet, 800 feet, 700 feet, 600 feet. I tried to calm down, focusing on the task. When I flew over the active runway, I was just 100 feet, then 50 feet above it. I turned off the key magnetos, alpha bravo, the red switch, fuel pump, and rotated the fuel selector valve—all off. At 50 feet and below, the fire was lapping my face.

I opened my left-hand canopy door, fiddling with the handle, elbowing it, and striking it with my hand. At 20 feet, I clambered over the door lip onto the wing and stood momentarily. The backwash of the propeller caused aggressive burns on my right side. I jumped from about 15 feet, landing hard and smashing my face on the sharp Florida grass below. My right shoulder and scalp were still on fire, so I patted them out.

The aircraft crash-landed with a crumpling noise and an almighty explosion. The heat and inferno were indescribable. It was then that the pain hit me—a tsunami of pain from head to toe. I had a facial fracture, bilateral super orbital eye socket fractures, a ruptured large intestine, and a lacerated liver. I was 63 percent third-degree burns. The medical diagnosis later confirmed the severity.

I started to grow colder and weaker with every passing second. I took off my shoes and socks, placing them neatly beside me, holding on. I don’t know how I did it. I was a young man, just 32 years old, fit as a butcher’s dog. I had that fighting edge. I waited and heard sirens, then remembered nothing for the next six months. The doctors in Orlando gave me a five percent chance of survival. I was in the fight of my life.

Thankfully, I had insurance, covering the $2.6 million bill for my four-month treatment in the US. I had 62 operations under general anesthesia for reconstructive work. I spent many years rehabilitating physically and mentally. It was important for me to get back in the air to fulfill my ambition again.

I won a scholarship to learn to fly a hot air balloon in Italy. It gave me a sense of freedom. Admittedly, what I do with the balloon now is a lot more sedate, fitting for the new version of myself. I’m not the high-speed guy I once was.