Tuesday, May 19, 2009

St. Barth - Saba / Cessna 182RG Skylane (N7126H) / VFR

This flight ended in tragedy, I'm afraid.

All went well until it was time to land on Saba's tiny 1300-foot runway. On the first pass, I was just going too fast, so I went around. On the second pass, I was still a bit fast, and I took too long to touch down. I braked hard, but I was still going a few miles per hour as I rolled off the runway and over the edge of the cliff. The aircraft hit some rocks and was a write-off. I managed to survive.

I quickly recovered and had a new Cessna teleported to the island, with the same registration number. Ain't virtual reality grand?

I'll charitably assume that I nearly killed myself on this flight because it's so hard to land at Saba, and I got a bit overconfident (and I was rusty).