Then he launched into one of the most interesting presentations we have had in some time. We all know we should we should file a flight plan. But do we? If not a flight plan, which is not required for VFR flying, at least a call to a responsible party who will check on you if you don't report in on time. Or, how about flight following? Let somebody know you're up there. Tony went on to make a presentation full of statistics, such as: 29% survive a GA crash. That means 71 of 100 don't and if they didn't file a flight plan, it doesn't really matter. But if you did survive your odds start going down with each passing hour. After about 48 hours, that's two days, of being pinned in wreckage maybe one of 100 will survive. Ninety-nine won't. This means you have a 1% chance of surviving a crash for 48 hours and being found alive if you were injured and didn't file a flight plan. Now that you are down and the clock is running, CAP (The Civil Air Patrol), an all-volunteer organization is notified. Crews are assembled as people arrange to leave work, which takes time, and the missions are launched. If you filed an IFR flight plan, CAP will take an average of 11.5 hours to find you. Your VFR flight plan results in an 18.2-hour search and no flight plan means you will lie in the wreckage for 62.6 hours on average. Your working ELT may reduce the average search time from 114 to 23 hours.

Tony gave us several other tips on survival and spent the rest of the entertaining and educational evening telling war stories about searches including a Bonanza out of El Monte. without a flight plan, he recently found. There were no survivors in that crash but at least the seven in the meager audience will have some of the knowledge they would need if the time which we all hope never comes, does. 050527