Another Cirrus down. Another chute save

jordane93

jordane93

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Glad to see another ,chute save. What's wrong with the engines on these planes,or is it fuel management?
 
Holy crap, Cirri are dropping outa the sky like pigeon poop!
 
Seems like a weekly thing these days. Glad all made it out OK. Hopefully cirrus pilots are learning from these crashes.
 
First off, is this really happening as often as it seems?

Second, if so, who's gonna insure Cirrus?
 
Jay Honeck said:
First off, is this really happening as often as it seems?

Second, if so, who's gonna insure Cirrus?
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Technically dangerous activities that end up with alive people that walk away unscathed are a lot cheaper to underwrite than maimed and dead ones. Maimed are the most expensive. Aircraft are cheap.
 
Second plane down on LI in as many weeks. Glad everyone survived this one.
 
Interesting quote in the article: "Officials say they were both shaken up, because once that parachute deployed, there is no way of knowing where you will land."

What would shake me up is the engine quitting . . . What bothered them was after pulling the chute, they had no control over where the plane came down. As many times as I've heard this aspect discussed on this and other boards, this is the first time I've ever heard it from someone after they popped the chute.
 
Man...scary to see how many of these general aviation accidents there are - especially for someone new to GA like me :(

You got about a 50/50 chance of making a successful GA flight now a days :oops:
 
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CC268 said:
Man...scary to see how many of these general aviation accidents there are - especially for someone new to GA like me :(
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We all agree flying is not a risk free activity. Neither is downhill skiing, snowmobiling on vertical (we've already had several avalanche deaths out my way, as we do every year), racing sports cars, rock climbing and any number of other recreational pursuits. But its best to keep the headlines in context.

Don't let the chatter around here scare you off. Examining these incidents and discussing them is a learning opportunity for all of us (with the speculation filter "on").

Like anything in life, managing the risks of an enjoyable pursuit is part of the deal. Training, maintaining your airplane properly, rigorous preparation for a flight including weather knowledge, more training, learning to apply sound judgement (including listening to that inner voice that says maybe it's not a good day to be off the ground) are all part of journey. From my very first flight in a Cessna 150, for me the rewards of being able to see this incredible landscape we inhabit from a perspective that very few others ever enjoy far outweighs the risks. The "Picture of the Day" thread is filled with tangible examples from a lot of other pilots that I believe feel more or less the same.
 
frfly172 said:
What's wrong with the engines on these planes,or is it fuel management?
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Looks like about a 100 mile trip, so they should have been able to easily make the round trip with plenty of fuel to spare, even on half tanks. But who knows. :confused:
 
Photos and details on Kathryn's Report. This is an especially nice photo of father and daughter, after surviving with just a few scratches:

KathrynsReport.jpg
 
GRG55 said:
We all agree flying is not a risk free activity. Neither is downhill skiing, snowmobiling on vertical (we've already had several avalanche deaths out my way, as we do every year), racing sports cars, rock climbing and any number of other recreational pursuits. But its best to keep the headlines in context.

Don't let the chatter around here scare you off. Examining these incidents and discussing them is a learning opportunity for all of us (with the speculation filter "on").

Like anything in life, managing the risks of an enjoyable pursuit is part of the deal. Training, maintaining your airplane properly, rigorous preparation for a flight including weather knowledge, more training, learning to apply sound judgement (including listening to that inner voice that says maybe it's not a good day to be off the ground) are all part of journey. From my very first flight in a Cessna 150, for me the rewards of being able to see this incredible landscape we inhabit from a perspective that very few others ever enjoy far outweighs the risks. The "Picture of the Day" thread is filled with tangible examples from a lot of other pilots that I believe feel more or less the same.
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Yea good perspective - I try to keep those things in mind!
 
I really hope it wasn't a fuel managment issue....happen before in CT a while back.
 
NoHeat said:
Photos and details on Kathryn's Report. This is an especially nicestaged photo of father and daughter, after surviving with just a few scratches:

KathrynsReport.jpg
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FTFY. I'm glad they are both OK, and I can imagine the thoughts that would go through my head if I had an emergency with one of my kids on board. This is the kind of photo that if they put in the brochure will sell a few Cirruses.
 
Lindberg said:
Looks like about a 100 mile trip, so they should have been able to easily make the round trip with plenty of fuel to spare, even on half tanks. But who knows. :confused:
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The airplane is largely intact so shouldn't be difficult to figure out what happened. I did note this line from one of the news reports, and wondering if the failure may have been "self-induced" if he was changing the engine controls.

“He was showing me the controls for when I get my pilot’s license, and the engine just stopped,” said Rachel, whose father is a certified pilot
 
Lindberg said:
FTFY. I'm glad they are both OK, and I can imagine the thoughts that would go through my head if I had an emergency with one of my kids on board. This is the kind of photo that if they put in the brochure will sell a few Cirruses.
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Somehow I just can't quite imagine Cirrus putting a picture of a crashed Cirrus in one of their brochures :rolleyes:

(Although I am sure it would make a good inclusion in the Cirrus training materials)
 
oregonboy109 said:
Seems like a weekly thing these days. Glad all made it out OK. Hopefully cirrus pilots are learning from these crashes.
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There are a LOT of Cirri...over 4500, almost twice as many as Piper Archers. Last time I ran GA statistics, about 0.6% of GA aircraft had an accident in a given year. That would be a Cirrus accident ever two weeks. But the 0.6% GA rate includes a large number of aircraft that don't fly much, and most of the Cirrus aircraft are newer and more active.

I have gotten curious enough that I'm running the same sort of analyses of Cirrus aircraft as I have on homebuilts, Cessna 172s and 210s, and the PA-28 series. I'll post results when I'm done.

Ron Wanttaja
 
96gs917 said:
Second plane down on LI in as many weeks. Glad everyone survived this one.
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It seems both these flights came down close to the destination at the end of a day of X-country flying. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if at least one of these turned out to be a simple case of running out of fuel. I've been around GA enough to know when a plane has mysterious 'engine issues' approaching it's final destination the first thing I ask is "was there any fuel found in the tanks?"

Glad everything turned out OK though for the two yesterday. They both walked away and that's a wonderful thing.
 
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wanttaja said:
There are a LOT of Cirri...over 4500, almost twice as many as Piper Archers. Last time I ran GA statistics, about 0.6% of GA aircraft had an accident in a given year. That would be a Cirrus accident ever two weeks. But the 0.6% GA rate includes a large number of aircraft that don't fly much, and most of the Cirrus aircraft are newer and more active.

I have gotten curious enough that I'm running the same sort of analyses of Cirrus aircraft as I have on homebuilts, Cessna 172s and 210s, and the PA-28 series. I'll post results when I'm done.

Ron Wanttaja
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Thanks, I'd be very interested in seeing your results.
 
wanttaja said:
There are a LOT of Cirri...over 4500, almost twice as many as Piper Archers. Last time I ran GA statistics, about 0.6% of GA aircraft had an accident in a given year. That would be a Cirrus accident ever two weeks. But the 0.6% GA rate includes a large number of aircraft that don't fly much, and most of the Cirrus aircraft are newer and more active.

I have gotten curious enough that I'm running the same sort of analyses of Cirrus aircraft as I have on homebuilts, Cessna 172s and 210s, and the PA-28 series. I'll post results when I'm done.

Ron Wanttaja
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Exactly what's needed to keep things in perspective and understand the real risks and issues. In the early days the stats showed that Cirrus did have a higher real accident rate, absolute and normalized to hours, but I think we have to give credit to their training programs and product development for a pretty dramatic improvement at a time the fleet is growing every year.
Look forward to your results.
Thanks!
 
Interesting to find what the cause of this one is.

A post above hints that the pilot might have inadvertently shut off the engine. If(and yes I'm just speculating here) you pop the chute instead of restarting, you're pretty dumb.
 
GRG55 said:
We all agree flying is not a risk free activity. Neither is downhill skiing, snowmobiling on vertical (we've already had several avalanche deaths out my way, as we do every year), racing sports cars, rock climbing and any number of other recreational pursuits. But its best to keep the headlines in context.

Don't let the chatter around here scare you off. Examining these incidents and discussing them is a learning opportunity for all of us (with the speculation filter "on").

Like anything in life, managing the risks of an enjoyable pursuit is part of the deal. Training, maintaining your airplane properly, rigorous preparation for a flight including weather knowledge, more training, learning to apply sound judgement (including listening to that inner voice that says maybe it's not a good day to be off the ground) are all part of journey. From my very first flight in a Cessna 150, for me the rewards of being able to see this incredible landscape we inhabit from a perspective that very few others ever enjoy far outweighs the risks. The "Picture of the Day" thread is filled with tangible examples from a lot of other pilots that I believe feel more or less the same.
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Very much enjoyed your post. I'm a total newbie (still in ground school) but grew up with my dad flying a C172, and will still be a while before I get to actually fly.

But I have to say, aviation theory, some of the points both amaze and scare a little. Grew up thinking altimeters showed how high you were above the ground :) and compasses would tell you direction, etc. not realizing of the corrections and state of flux and all that all the input gives. I don't know how you guys do it, heh.

But for me the worst is the idea of carb icing. I know I've got a long ways to go, and I am all ears here, etc. but even in my theory book, I look at the chart for icing conditions, and read statement pretty much that it can happen in any day, warm summer or winter, etc. Even here I see a lot of different viewpoints on how dangerous it is, differing (sometime opposing) procedures for keeping it from icing or getting rid of it fast.

So it is good to read your post, because I know this has some element of risk, but I think pilots mostly are of the mind that when you learn all of this, sure accidents can happen even to experienced pilots, but most of the time you can fly safely and have to use your head and be sharp.

Anyway, it helped.
 
Just saw an awesome piece on the Today show. Included the video. Very positive for GA
 
JCranford said:
Wow, that comes in a lot harder than I thought it would
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I believe Cirrus states the vertical descent rate is somewhere between 1500 and 1700 ft/min.

That is why I was surprised when a couple of people here posted that some of the planes that had the parachutes deployed were repaired and back flying (not many apparently).
 
GRG55 said:
I believe Cirrus states the vertical descent rate is somewhere between 1500 and 1700 ft/min.
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Some facts from Cirrus:
Stabilized descent rate at max gross for a G1-G3 SR22 with the 55ft parachute: ~1700 FPM (this one was a G1)
Stabilized descent rate at max gross for a G5 SR22 with the 65ft parachute: ~1300 FPM (but the opening sequence is a bit longer)

Recall also that these are max gross figures. In most cases, one would be below gross when pulling which would reduce decent rate.

Anecdotally, I was told recently by a former Falcon 900 pilot that they were told they could land with as much as 1000FPM rate at main gear touchdown without breaking anything. I'm sure they would have heard from the passengers about that but apparently that was within spec for the landing gear to handle.

While there have been a few injuries (a handful significant) in 'successful' CAPS deployments, they comprise less than 10% of the population of CAPS passengers, tend to be in situations with low (e.g., <1000ft) deployment, and/or due to poor posture/bracing at impact. The record for 'clean' CAPS pulls (belted in/proper posture, under gross weight, >1000 ft AGL deployment) is VERY good with typical injuries similar to what we saw here - one passenger with a minor cut and both walk away.
 
The parachute in my CTSW is supposed to drop the plane at gross at about 1500fpm, which equates to something like 22mph vertical speed. That a pretty hard hit, but better than 50-60mph forward speed in an off airport landing/crash (depending on landing zone terrain of course). With a good landing area I'll take my chances, with a marginal one I'll take the 22mph hit every time.

Also you'll notice the gear takes a lot of the landing impact, by design.
 
As a reference number, an army T-10 Parachute lands a paratrooper at 1320-1440 FPM based on weight. Not that different. Done it many times (way over allowable gross more often than not), it's hard, and the gear "legs" takes most of the impact, but it's certainly nothing to fear in these situations.
 
Never jumped a T-10. I like my Velocity chute. Very sporty, but yo can bleed off the forward speed and land very softly instead of pounding in and wearing out your knees.

Here's what happens when you land a high performance parachute the wrong way
Parachute crash.JPG
 
JCranford said:
Never jumped a T-10. I like my Velocity chute. Very sporty, but yo can bleed off the forward speed and land very softly instead of pounding in and wearing out your knees.

Here's what happens when you land a high performance parachute the wrong way
View attachment 44426
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Your shoe comes off.
 
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