Lessons learned....
First, as I have already posted, if you're on the water, you could be in it by surprise - be prepared. For me that was being a practiced swimmer, water and ice water rescue instructor for the fire department, 'took the dunker course, and wore my life jacket. My choices. I have a fleeting recollection of floating in the water, knowing I was sinking, but being adequately calm, and inflating my life jacket. Each of my rescuers told me much later that I was calm and communicative the who time.
Next, I was the instructor. I was very confident in the skills demonstrated by the pilot flying, and was getting ready to send him for his solo water work, so I was relaxed, and not paying as much attention as I might to how the aircraft was being handled. My mentors tell me that that event was unrecoverable, but it was also preventable.
And, it was not a fault of the plane, nor the type. Lake Amphibians are not "dangerous" because we crashed one. I believe that any type, operated on the water, would have been equally poor in outcome during such an event.
Like teaching ground loops in tail draggers, it's really difficult to demonstrate "this is what it looks like when it's going bad", while assuring that it does not go bad! Instructing when everything is going well is fairly easy, it's teaching to the more precarious corners of handling which is difficult. The student deserves the lesson, but they also deserve a safe flight!
I honestly don't know if I'll do any more water training - I love my wife much more than I like pilot training. If I do, there'll be a lot more ground briefing (knowing that I already did many hours of it as it was!). As I said to the TSB investigator (there'll be no report, by the way), I have spent a life of flying preventing Swiss cheese holes from lining up. This event had no Swiss cheese holes at all, and still happened! "Yup..... that's why we call them accidents..."
Lake St. John accident
Moderators: sky's the limit, sepia, Sulako, lilfssister, North Shore
Re: Lake St. John accident
Sounds like your student did something at a critical time that put you in an unrecoverable position.
