Norfolk Island crash pilot an instant celebrity

STAR POWER: Dominic James as he appeared for Cleo's Bachelor of the Year finals.

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He's been called Australia's Captain Sully and a "great chick magnet" who could soon be earning hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of endorsements.

On Wednesday night, Captain Dominic James, a Cleo Bachelor of the Year finalist, "did an almost unbelievable" job of successfully ditching a small medical evacuation plane off the coast of Norfolk Island.

Captain James not only saved the lives of all six on board the jet but could soon be a media superstar, celebrity agent Max Markson said.

"As a Cleo Bachelor of the Year [finalist], he would have enormous credibility and lots of opportunity. He could get hundreds of thousands of dollars in endorsements and modelling contracts," Markson said.

"He's a great chick magnet ... if he wants to contact me, I'll happily talk to him."

While the ditching by the pilot from NSW has been compared to Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III's ditching of an airliner in the Hudson River, his aeronautical feat has been hailed as even more amazing.

"[Captain James] did a job that was almost unbelievable. He did it in the dark, with no lights and possibly no horizon," said Christopher Newns of Concept Aviation Supplies, who has been flying small planes since 1973.

"It's unlike the Hudson River [ditching], which was done in good visual conditions, by a very experienced pilot and co-pilot, and they would have had training exercises in a simulator.

"He must have had everything just right - speed, pitch, the whole thing must have been beautifully done and, dare I say it, with luck and God on his side."

Captain James was flying the plane from Apia in Samoa to Melbourne and was scheduled to land at Norfolk Island for refuelling, Careflight said.

But after several unsuccessful approaches at one of the island's airstrips, which are all in excess of 300 feet above mean sea level, and with the plane running out of fuel, the pilot made the decision to ditch in the sea nearby instead.

"For long-ocean crossings, you tank up at Point A at one end and you know you have to stop for refuelling at Point B [before the final landing]," said Mr Newns.

"During your flight, you reach a point of no return, and you must be sure that the weather at the other end is OK, or you have to turn back. Whether the weather was bad at the time of departure, I don't know, but as they approached Norfolk Island, the weather suddenly turned to custard."

For Captain James to have aborted a few landing attempts at the island meant the "visual conditions would have been below the minimum".

"If he had continued the approach towards the runway, and the instruments were slightly wrong, he could have easily flown into the runway. He may have risked the lives of everybody on board," Mr Newns said.

"The better option was to have a controlled landing into water rather than an uncontrolled crash at the airfield."

Mr Newns praised Captain James's early decision to land the plane on water.

"The most important thing was the command decision to do it. It was not like he was out of fuel and he had to do something. He made the decision early enough before he ran out of fuel, so that he could set himself up properly for the landing.

"There are a lot of variables in the incident relating to weather, fuel carried, alternate airports, the company's Air Operators' Certificates and whether they complied with CAO 82.0.

"However, the fact remains that, when the weather turned out to be bad and the pilot conducted multiple approaches, in the end he made a sensible Command Decision to ditch while he still had the engines running and before he ran out of fuel.

"Regardless of any bad decisions made in getting to that point, in the end he made a decision and got the aircraft down safely."

Captain James is not allowed to speak to the media until his interviews with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and Civil Aviation Safety Authorities are conducted, a spokeswoman for Pel-Air Aviation said.

The Westwind jet is described as a small to mid-size two-engine corporate jet from Israel worth about $1 to $2 million. It can carry a flight crew of two, with seating for up to eight passengers.

- © Fairfax NZ News