Which of the two is the burdened vessel?

The person in the boat should have been trying to get away if he saw the plane in time. The pilot was not paying much attention either.

Who is "in right" does not matter to those dead or injured.

George
 
Colregs are clear… boats are stand on, seaplane are give way. Obviously both are responsible to avoid a collision but it much harder to do when doing 8 or 9 kts vs 70.

Unless there are specific harbor regs going against the colregs. Often there will be seaplane operating zones on charts but that downs tgive them any special privileges
 
gcolton said:
The person in the boat should have been trying to get away if he saw the plane in time. The pilot was not paying much attention either.

Who is "in right" does not matter to those dead or injured.

George
Click to expand...
The pilot's vision was probably obstructed the moment he set the throttle. Now, if he started up with those boats in his path, that's not exactly brilliant. We boated quite a bit in the dinghy around Elbow Cay in the Abacos. There is a long spoil bank leading into White Sound. We were coming back from Hope Town in the dink and turned into the channel leading up to the Abaco Inn. Two float planes were sitting there with props spinning so I stopped the dink and pulled well clear of the channel. The pilots flashed there landing lights several times. So we moved in and made the corner towards Sea Spray. The planes blew by us and took off.

So they made sure the path out was clear before taking off. I am thinking in this case the pilot did not. There were at least two boats close to his departure path.
 
There seem to be more to this story including special local rules applying to this specific area and possible BUI charges for the boater.
 
PascalG said:
Colregs are clear… boats are stand on, seaplane are give way. Obviously both are responsible to avoid a collision but it much harder to do when doing 8 or 9 kts vs 70.

Unless there are specific harbor regs going against the colregs. Often there will be seaplane operating zones on charts but that downs tgive them any special privileges
Click to expand...
Not so in Canada. Boat was from the right, thus was the stand on, but if it were from the left, the plane has the right of way. 602.20 (1)

Canadian Aviation Regulations

Federal laws of Canada
laws-lois.justice.gc.ca laws-lois.justice.gc.ca
Complicating the issue is this was a marked water runway (not an operating zone) with a control tower and instrument approach procedure no less, that the boat wandered into. It would be like a car coming onto a controlled airport runway from the right.
 
There should be plenty of markers. I saw none in the videos. But not having access to the Canadian charts all I could find was a warning blob on Active Captain (garmin).
 
602.20 applies to aircraft manoeuvering on water. I would not call that manoeuvering, but taking-off. See 602.19(10).
 
Interesting how the COLREGS and CARs differs. The COLREGS are international and apply worldwide. Local harbor rules are another matter but how would an American vessel know that the CARs give stand on status to a seaplane on port side?
 
PascalG said:
Interesting how the COLREGS and CARs differs. The COLREGS are international and apply worldwide. Local harbor rules are another matter but how would an American vessel know that the CARs give stand on status to a seaplane on port side?
Click to expand...
I was wondering if COLREGS were applicable.
 
boatbum said:
There should be plenty of markers. I saw none in the videos. But not having access to the Canadian charts all I could find was a warning blob on Active Captain (garmin).
Click to expand...
IMG_1961.jpeg
 
boatbum said:
I was wondering if COLREGS were applicable.
Click to expand...
Good point. The international part of the colregs apllies outside the demarcation lines. Inland section only applies in US inland waters. There must be Canadian plubkication for inland waters
 
Thanks Pascal, that chart snippet shows more detail than what I have available. But still, it's pretty weak. I'd expect to see some serious marker postings analogous to what we see for security zones in the USA. But even that may not have prevented the shnook from wandering into that area.
 
Seaplanes operate here in NYC in the East River (New York Skyports Seaplane base - IATA NYS, FAA 6N7), no 'marked' areas for them.
 
A base is different from a seaplane runway. This runway is actually charted part of the airport and is controlled by a control tower. It even has an instrument approach procedure with minimums to the "water runway".
 
New information. The pilot was informed of the vessel by the tower

 
So he was told about the traffic… he had visibly issues while getting on step… the tower didn’t keep an eye on the developing situation… the area isn’t marked… but hey… it was a “world class response”

This is another example of pathetic bureaucratic failure.

None of the pictures and videos show any markers, buoys, signs…. warning boats of seaplane traffic.
 
I can tell you this. I've landed there in a C-185 on floats. Any boat transiting the area is akin to playing on the freeway. It is very busy with floatplane traffic.
 
"Take off at your discretion"? It's tough to blame the controller but that doesn't sound like much of a warning.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top