Daring Greatly
Lee's Water Landing on Lake Cavanaugh
Lee Harman has about 3000 hours and has many certifications for flying. He has been flying privately since 1978.
Dr. Lee Harman
Sunday, August 16, 2020 was a beautiful day for flying. Preflight was in order and had a 30 minute preflight with his passenger for the day and fellow pilot, Don Richards at breakfast. Talked about the route. Plans changed when they weren’t able to land at the sea float and decided to have lunch at Lake Cavanaugh instead. Lunch at Lake Cavanaugh was not planned, when they decided to go to Lake Cavanaugh they decided to land at the south end of the lake. When they flew in Lee noticed that there was more boat activity than normal. When they came into land they kissed an unseen wave and bounced into the air. As they came down again the left front float mount broke, this made the propeller hit the front of the float and a blade broke on the float.
Lee and Don were in the plane with the boat listing down. They climbed out on the right side of the plane. As soon as it happened there were about 50 boats around. Lee had not thought about what he was going to do if this happened in a lake. They were towed to shore by many vessels. And the Fire Department came. They towed the plane to shore resulting in the right starboard float coming off also. When this happened the plane itself ended up underwater.
Lee took the parts to a machinist friend that found out that the part that brook had been broken before Lee purchased the plane. They also found out that the float mount on the other side had also already been fractured. The accident occurred because the float mounts had been fractured prior to the event. The drive home was long and quiet.
Four days later they returned to the airport to take care of the airplane. The wings had already been taken off and the remains of the fuselage was disconnected. After inspecting the plane they found that the engine and electronics were all ok. This means that the plane will fly again, but on land based gear. Lee and Don walked away from this unharmed and we are grateful.
Lee is now in the process of writing letters to other owners to help them to be aware of this issue. He is also writing an article for the Sea Plane Pilates Association that will hopefully be published.
Lee learned from this process that you need to always have a plan and to be ready to take control of a situation.
Lee's presentation was recorded and the video is on our club's YouTube Channel. Here is a link: CLICK HERE.
