Got a call yesterday morning. A 206 has beached across the bay the night before and needed help getting off and back across and out of the water.
Apparently the pilot had misjudged distance he needed to make the corner coming into the bay and ran aground at a fairly high speed, though he had pulled mixture before hitting the beach.
The front left float hit a tree pretty hard and tore open the front compartment.
The middle rigging tube on the left was bent pretty badly, and the bolt attaching it to the pork chop was sheared.
The door has some trouble closing now, which is a little disconcerting.
We braced it some before pushing it back, to prevent any chance of it collapsing.
Then we pushed it back a bit and pumped out the rear compartments that had been submerged for 10-12 hours. Surprisingly they were not flooded even though they had been fully submerged that long.
The bent rigging tube actually helped hold the damaged compartment above the waterline once we pushed it out to floating.
A couple of the 'muscle' that had come over to help push it into the water realized that their boat was leaving with out them (it was towing the plane) and jumped onto the float (the damaged one)) and even with the extra weight on that side the front still stayed dry for the ride across the bay, where we pulled it out of the water and into a tie-down until the owner and his insurance company decide what they want to do.
Apparently the pilot had misjudged distance he needed to make the corner coming into the bay and ran aground at a fairly high speed, though he had pulled mixture before hitting the beach.
The front left float hit a tree pretty hard and tore open the front compartment.
The middle rigging tube on the left was bent pretty badly, and the bolt attaching it to the pork chop was sheared.
The door has some trouble closing now, which is a little disconcerting.
We braced it some before pushing it back, to prevent any chance of it collapsing.
Then we pushed it back a bit and pumped out the rear compartments that had been submerged for 10-12 hours. Surprisingly they were not flooded even though they had been fully submerged that long.
The bent rigging tube actually helped hold the damaged compartment above the waterline once we pushed it out to floating.
A couple of the 'muscle' that had come over to help push it into the water realized that their boat was leaving with out them (it was towing the plane) and jumped onto the float (the damaged one)) and even with the extra weight on that side the front still stayed dry for the ride across the bay, where we pulled it out of the water and into a tie-down until the owner and his insurance company decide what they want to do.
