Helicopter Lost at Sea: True Story

Helicopter Lost at Sea is a true story based on a real incident in which I almost lost my life, as I was lost at Sea whilst flying in my Seaking helicopter 300 nautical miles from the nearest land, with no hope of being able to land on a ship and no fuel to go back to main land, thus leaving me with no option but to crash land into the sea, or do a controlled ditching of my helicopter into the water on that dark, moonless and cloudy night, never to be found again, by any rescue team searching the Sea for me, in those Shark infested waters of the ocean. It is nothing but God's Grace, that I came back out of this real life threatening incident in one piece and that I am able to write this true story for you to read.

Such experience in life leaves a permanent impression in the memory that cannot be erased. I have flown the Seaking Helicopters for over three decades, mostly over the sea since I served the Navy those days, looking out for enemy ships trying to enter our territorial waters and enemy submarines that would lurk underwater to sink our ships. During a war, once the helicopter finds any enemy ship or submarine out at sea, the ship or submarine are as good as dead and defenseless, against the weapons like missiles and torpedoes carried on the Seaking helicopter.

That day, I was on board our ship. The ship was sailing independently. Normally, a naval ship of about a 100 to 150 meters in length will carry about 300 sailors and officers onboard. Add another 30 sailors and a few officers if the ship can carry a helicopter on its helicopter deck. The helicopter deck is usually at the back of small ships with one or two hangars which can house one helicopter each.

But an aircraft carrier can carry dozens of aircraft and may have a huge hangar below which is capable of housing all those aircraft and the flat top deck acts almost as an airport with a runway marked on its flight deck. The aircraft are brought up to the top deck for flying using a huge hydraulic lift capable of lifting the largest aircraft the carrier ship operates. The small runway can be used to launch aircraft using a catapult and lands with a hook that engages steel wire ropes to stop. Once flying is over, the helicopters and aircraft are taken to the lower deck for maintenance using the lift once again.

The flight briefing for a mission was completed at 10:30 pm which is well into the night. The sea was rough and was feeling sea sick because the ship was rolling to both sides, pitching up and down and the entire ship was heaving as it was being lifted up and thrown down by the huge waves. When everyone else was preparing to sleep that night, the four of us namely two pilots and two navigators were preparing to go for a four hour flying sortie over the sea, in a complete dark night starting from midnight till 4 am. We had a Tea in the wardroom to keep us awake in flight.

The Wardroom is a place normally used in the ship for dining as well as for recreational purposes like watching TV or playing a game of Chess etc. All Officers are usually found there when not on watch or duty. After the tea, the four of us, that is I, my copilot and my two navigators, left the wardroom or the Officer's mess on the ship, and proceeded towards the helicopter deck discussing our mission which will be done using ZipLip.

ZipLip is a procedure in which we will not speak a word spoken between the ship and the helicopter, from time we take off until the time we land back on deck, after 4 hours, except in case of a helicopter emergency requiring us to land back on ship before 4 hours. This is done so that in a real war, the enemy cannot intercept our radio messages that will give away our position or intent.

We knew what to do after takeoff till we come back to a pre-decided point over the sea where the ship would also come back after doing her mission at the same time to allow us to land on her deck. Otherwise, neither the ship knows where we are, nor we know where the ship is.

I went around my helicopter to ensure everything is ok. Then I went into the cockpit and strapped up on my seat. I pressed the start button after doing all the necessary checks and the left engine started up. Then I checked everything is ok like the engine rpm, oil temperature, oil pressure and the hydraulics etc. I checked all the controls for full and free moment to their physical limits, at the same time looking at the rotor blades of the helicopter outside through the cockpit window to see whether the rotor blades are changing their angles according to the way my cyclic and collective control levers are being moved.

The cyclic lever is used by the pilot to move the helicopter left, right, forward, rearward in hover and to increase or decrease speed and turn left or right when in forward flight. The collective lever is used to take the helicopter up or down in height. The rudders yaw the aircraft in the horizontal plane. With these three controls the pilot can fly the helicopter the way he wants. Then I did my autopilot checks and pressed the start button of the right engine. This was followed by allowing the engines to start rotating the main rotors of the helicopter, bringing up the rotor rpm to 100%. I increased the rpm of the left engine also, to ensure that both left and right engines are now sharing the rotor load equally.

After doing a few more checks I was ready to pick up my helicopter from the ship's deck to a hover. The flight signaler also called as the marshaller on ships, stands in front of the helicopter, to tell the pilot, when to take off or land. The Stop/Go light on the deck turned green from its original red color indicating that I am permitted to take off when ready. I indicated to the marshaller, to remove the chocks and lashing which are used to tie down a helicopter to the ship's deck. The marshaller got them removed the lashing and chocks and then showed me a green light wand he had in his hand to indicate that my helicopter is free and I can take off safely now.

I, once again ensured everything is ok inside my helicopter cockpit and pulled my Collective lever slowly to bring the helicopter to a hover on the deck. At hover I did a final check of engine, rotors, autopilot and all other parameters are fine and took off to the port or left side of the ship as winds were coming from that side. All aircraft and helicopters always take off into the wind direction.

We flew off in our helicopter into complete darkness past midnight, with no moon and the sky completely cloudy over the sea. It is a very scary situation as a pilot can get disoriented and crash an aircraft due to disorientation, for no reason. Most pilots don't want to fly in dark nights as they are scared of disorientation, which can happen to any pilot irrespective of his flying experience.

Lost at Sea in Helicopter: True Story Begins

We completed our mission in three and a half hours. We returned back to the place where we were told our ship the be at that time, to let us land on her deck. We were left with 45 minutes of fuel left including the 30 minutes mandatory reserve fuel, which is not to be used normally for safety reasons. So we had actually 15 minutes only to find our ship and make a safe landing. Our GPS or Global Positioning System indicated that we were at the pre-decided position over the sea.

But we could not find our ship anywhere up to 30 nautical miles. Where are we going to land? We patiently waited for a while there. If the ship was around, we should have seen its red and green port and starboard navigation lights and also its yellow mast head light if she was sailing towards us or only its tail light and its mast head light, if she was going away from us. We circled in the same position looking for our ship's lights. Nothing was visual at 1000 feet height we were flying that time. This was something I was not prepared for and had not expected to happen.

We searched for 10 minutes without any results. There was five minutes to go before we start consuming our 30 minutes mandatory reserve fuel also. Now we were becoming restless and continued to strain our eyes into the darkness outside, trying desperately to find even a single light anywhere around. Some more time passed. Now I was left with only a total fuel which may keep my helicopter airborne for another 20 minutes maximum, after which one by one both the engines will fail and we will crash into water.

What will happen after our fuel finishes in about 20 minutes? We discussed the situation and decided to prepare for a controlled ditching or landing our helicopter in water before both her engines failed on their own due to fuel starvation. In a controlled ditching, I will have to bring the helicopter into a hover very low over water and allow my two navigators to open the rear door and jump out of the helicopter into water first, followed by my copilot. I will be left alone in the aircraft after that.

As per procedure, I have to move my helicopter about 20 meters away from the three of them, land my helicopter on water and shut down the engines. Once the helicopter rotor blades stop rotating, I will have to get out of the helicopter myself through the small window and swim away before the helicopter starts sinking or topples over due to the huge waves, if I am lucky.

In case, if it is an uncontrolled ditching where the helicopter crashes on water due to both engine failure and starts sinking, then all four of us will have to wait till the rotors stop rotating due to hitting the rotor blades hitting water. Then, we all will have to quickly unstrap our seat belts and swim out through our individual small windows, which is a difficult procedure, especially when the aircraft is sinking and we are holding our breath under water.

That is the procedure. But will we all be able to do this procedure, in a dark night ,when we are not even sure if the helicopter is vertical or upside down inside water, despite all our training in the swimming pool back home, is a million dollar question. And at night there is no way to know which way is up once you are disoriented under water. People have swam to deeper waters after ditching at night thinking that is the way up, lost breath control, took water into their lungs and have died.

We were hopeful that our ship will come there to save us. We continued to circle in the same place for another 8 minutes and still no sign of our ship. That is when I decided to break ZipLip as now we were facing a very grave emergency to our own life in a perfectly working helicopter, only because the ship did not turn up in the position where she was supposed to be at that time and our helicopter did not have adequate fuel to keep us airborne for any longer.

It is a land now or crash into the sea situation. Finally, I pressed the radio button and give a call to the ship, asking the ship for its position and telling the ship's crew, that I have been circling in the pre-decided position for over half an hour.

No reply came for a minute. So, I transmitted my message once again. Another minute went by. Then I heard the voice of the Navigating Officer of the ship saying, "From the Admiral, we can't tell you the ship's position, but we are coming towards you at full speed. Don't worry".

I felt like laughing at him even when we were losing hope of seeing the sun rise a couple of hours later. In a ship, full speed means maximum 50 kmph. They did not even tell us if they were holding us on their Radar. I asked them again, with respect to me which direction is the ship, so that I can also fly towards the ship. But no reply came from ship and we continued to circle losing both time and hope.

I Declared Helicopter Lost At Sea

The fuel low level warning was now on for the past five minutes, as the communication was going on. The two fuel tank fuel low level warning lights come on when there is less than 60 gallons of fuel left in each tank out o f 15 gallons are unusable. There was enough panic already in the cockpit and we were preparing for landing on water in a dark night which was more of a gambling with our own life than any science involved. The two fuel low warning lights were adding more panic inside our helicopter in my crew, in this dark, moonless and cloudy night over the sea with no ship or shore within sight to land on.

I didn't want to fly that aircraft any more. I started wishing I was not in this cockpit on this fateful day. I knew our chances of getting back on the ship's deck was only a dream. I wished I had not taken off that night. And whether it is a controlled ditching or a crash after both engines fail, the result won't be much different. In either case the chance of we four surviving was very bleak. I didn't want to ditch the helicopter at sea. Our luck that day was so bad that there was not even a small fishing boat anywhere in sight, where we could go an ditch the helicopter. So the fishermen rescuing us was also out of question.

I announced to my crew, "Now that our ship probably knows where we are, I am going to climb to 4000 feet height and see if we can spot the ship and fly towards it. And also, I am going to shut down the left engine to conserve fuel as the aircraft is very light and does not need two engines. That way we might extend our time in air with this fuel from 8 minutes to 10 or 11 minutes. Even if the right engine fails at 4000 feet, we will have adequate autorotation or gliding time to start the left engine before we hit water."

All three of my crew agreed with my decision immediately. I started a gentle climb and transmitted a message on radio, which I thought would be my last in this life, "We have 8 minutes absolute endurance to remain airborne before we crash. Intend climbing to 4000 feet and shut down one engine to extend endurance to about 11 minutes from now. I am LOST AT SEA!"

A few seconds later, I heard a familiar voice on the radio, "Hey guys, all lights on, Look north."

It was the voice of my Squadron Commander, who must have been much more tense at the thought of losing a helicopter and his crew sitting on the ship, than the four of us in air flying a helicopter about to crash in a few minutes. I immediately turned my helicopter towards northerly direction and started looking out for the lights my Squadron Commander mentioned.

I asked, "Sir, what is your distance?"

He replied, "26 Nautical Miles son. Will you be able to make it?"

I said, "If God is kind, Sir. My fuel gauges are almost touching zero."

In the Navy we don't break rules, come whatever may. Unfortunately, all these two dozen red, green and amber lights including the 'Do Not Land' flashing red light are all fitted on the helicopter deck which is at the rear end of the ship and will not visible to us when she is heading towards us. We will see only the red and green navigation lights and the mast head light. I felt like laughing out aloud once again at my luck. I stopped the climb when we reached 4000 feet and put my helicopter into a shallow descent towards the earth and headed for the north pole, to save fuel.

After a few minutes, I saw a faint light on the horizon. It was my ship coming towards my helicopter at her full speed of 50 kmph. Hope of seeing the sunrise in two hour, lighted up within us once again. I made a dash towards the ship and did a very short circuit, not putting on too much bank as I was afraid of engines failing.

After landing I quickly switched off the engines before the engines decided to flamed out on their own due to fuel finishing off. As the helicopter engines were shutting down, I looked at my fuel gauges. The forward fuel tank showed zero fuel left, the aft fuel tank showed zero fuel left and the centre fuel tank also read zero fuel left. With all three fuel gauges reading zero, I may have been flying with just the fuel left in the fuel lines between the fuel tank and engines.

There was no debrief when I went to the Ship's bridge. The Commanding Officer and the Admiral stood there, both looking ahead into the darkness. I signed the document and came down the stairs wanting to sleep.

The Navigating Officer was waiting down stairs for me. He said, "Son I am really sorry that the whole ship forgot about you. I got so busy with the tasks the Admiral gave the ship's crew, that I totally forgot about you being airborne, thanks to the Zip Lip procedure. Please pardon me for my failure to ensure your safely, though I will never be able to pardon myself for this filure."

As I hit my bed after going through this beautiful incident at 5:00 am, the ship's crew were waking up in the morning. I head the quartermaster announce on the ship's broadcast system with his customary Pipe "Hands Call". I slowly slipped into a slumber after a long and a blissful helicopter flight which I will never forget in my life.

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