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handicapped. An unconscious desire to delay the dreaded moment may lead to such errors as a delay in the selection of the most suitable landing area within reach and indecision in general. Desperate attempts to correct whatever went wrong at the expense of aircraft control fall into the same category. 

The pilot who has been conditioned during training to expect to find a relatively safe landing area whenever the flight instructor closes the throttle for a simulated forced landing may ignore all basic rules of airmanship to avoid a touchdown in terrain where aircraft damage is unavoidable. Typical consequences are making a 180° turn back to the runway when available altitude is insufficient, stretching the glide without regard for minimum control speed in order to reach a more appealing field, or accepting an approach and touchdown situation that leaves no margin for error. The desire to save the aircraft, regardless of the risks involved, may be influenced by two other factors: the pilot’s fi nancial stake in the aircraft and the certainty that an undamaged aircraft implies no bodily harm. There are times, however, when a pilot should be more interested in sacrifi cing the aircraft so that the occupants can safely walk away from it. 

Fear is a vital part of the self-preservation mechanism. However, when fear leads to panic, we invite that which we want most to avoid. The survival records favor pilots who maintain their composure and know how to apply the general concepts and procedures that have been developed through the years. The success of an emergency landing is as much a matter of the mind as of skills. 

##  Basic Safety Concepts 

A pilot who is faced with an emergency landing in terrain that makes extensive aircraft damage inevitable should keep in mind that the avoidance of crash injuries is largely a matter of: 

1. Keeping vital structure (flight deck where the pilot and passenger are seated) relatively intact by using dispensable structure, such as wings, landing gear, and carriage bottom to absorb the violence of the stopping process before it affects the occupants. 

2. Avoiding forward wing movement relative to the carriage, allowing the mast to rotate into the fl ight deck occupants, or the front tube to compress and break, providing structure to impale/stab the occupants. 

The advantage of sacrificing dispensable structure is demonstrated daily on the highways. A head-on car impact against a tree at 20 miles per hour (mph) is less hazardous for a properly restrained driver than a similar impact against the driver’s door. Statistics indicate that the extent of crushable 

structure between the occupants and the principal point of impact on the aircraft has a direct bearing on the severity of the transmitted crash forces and, therefore, on survivability. Compared to an airplane, the WSC aircraft has less structure to absorb the impact and is moving slower, but the same principles apply. 

Avoiding forcible contact with the front tube, cowling, dashboard, or outside structure is a matter of seat and body security with the use of seatbelts. Unless the occupant decelerates at the same rate as the surrounding structure, no benefit is realized from its relative intactness. The occupant is brought to a stop violently in the form of a secondary collision. 

Dispensable aircraft structure is not the only available energy- absorbing medium in an emergency situation. Vegetation, trees, and even manmade structures may be used for this purpose. Cultivated fields with dense crops, such as mature corn and grain, are almost as effective in bringing an aircraft to a stop with repairable damage as an emergency arresting device on a runway. [Figure 13-2]  Brush and small trees provide considerable cushioning and braking effect without destroying the aircraft. When dealing with natural and man- made obstacles with greater strength than the dispensable aircraft structure, the pilot must plan the touchdown in such a manner that only nonessential structure is “used up” in the principal slowing down process. 

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It should be noted that examples presented here are not to 

