Cirrus Caps Deployment Plane Crash and Rescue from the Quebec Wilderness

BrianNC

BrianNC

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Couldn't find this posted. I saw it on Reddit. This Youtuber documented his CAPS deployment. Well after he crashed in the wilderness. Video starts with old footage from another deployment. He doesn't start filming until after he crashed.


 
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Pretty cool. That looks like a place I wouldn’t want to lose an engine in the 172/182’s I fly. I doubt I’ll ever be able to afford one but I do have a bit of jealousy of CAPS when I’m flying over the mountains at night.
 
....and that’s why I also carry one of those devices..
 
that photo sure looks like a tree penetrated the cabin near where the pilot has his left leg?
 
Wow. I guess that was a good landing. With an air lift out for bonus points!
Well played
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
that photo sure looks like a tree penetrated the cabin near where the pilot has his left leg?
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It does look like the airplane is impaled on the tree. If so, close call. :eek:
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
that photo sure looks like a tree penetrated the cabin near where the pilot has his left leg?
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GRG55 said:
It does look like the airplane is impaled on the tree. If so, close call. :eek:
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It looks that way but it has to be deceptive. Those trees have a lot of limbs and it would have been impossible for the plane to slide down the whole tree, not to mention by its location it surely would have injured him severely if not killed him. Need a better pic.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
that photo sure looks like a tree penetrated the cabin near where the pilot has his left leg?
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BrianNC said:
It looks that way but it has to be deceptive. Those trees have a lot of limbs and it would have been impossible for the plane to slide down the whole tree, not to mention by its location it surely would have injured him severely if not killed him. Need a better pic.
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It did. It scraped his left leg. He said if it was a couple of inches over it would have severely damaged his leg. Six more inches and it might have impaled and killed him.



Wayne
 
I have been involved with a few searches for a downed plane in Alaska.

Humans usually are not the first responders.

But, it looked like the 'chute did its job and brought the pilot to the ground safely instead of flying into the trees.

Really surprising to see that tree penetrate the plane like it did.

Wonder if the pilot waved goodbye to the plane. That one probably won't be recovered.
 
wayne said:
It did. It scraped his left leg. He said if it was a couple of inches over it would have severely damaged his leg. Six more inches and it might have impaled and killed him.

Wayne
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Ah. Didn’t remember him saying that.
 
It might have been a dead tree that the have already fallen from, just a tall stump that caught the plane just right.
 
BrianNC said:
Couldn't find this posted. I saw it on Reddit. This Youtuber documented his CAPS deployment. Well after he crashed in the wilderness. Video starts with old footage from another deployment. He doesn't start filming until after he crashed.


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Pfft, the stall into the tree tops is what a real pilot would have done, just like the book says.

No really though I wish I had CAPS. He would 100% be dead or severely injured and probably have died before search and rescue got to him with out it.

Isn’t there a company that does aftermarket parachutes for Cessna and piper?
 
Rebel Lord said:
Pfft, the stall into the tree tops is what a real pilot would have done, just like the book says.

No really though I wish I had CAPS. He would 100% be dead or severely injured and probably have died before search and rescue got to him with out it.

Isn’t there a company that does aftermarket parachutes for Cessna and piper?
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https://brsaerospace.com/
 
Rebel Lord said:
He would 100% be dead or severely injured and probably have died before search and rescue got to him with out it.
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I wonder if he got into some poison ivy?!? His rear end might itch for days! Oh, the dangers of pulling the chute over wilderness.

He would have been in a jam if he wasn't otherwise so prepared, with the SOS handheld and snacks, etc...

I think people push the rescue button too much in the sailing world. I've seen too many people plucked off intact boats cause it got a little lumpy out there. You crash a plane and live, go ahead and push that button, let them come to you.
 
Zeldman said:
Really surprising to see that tree penetrate the plane like it did.
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No kidding. I knew that the CAPS rate of descent was not so slow as to be considered gentle but I didn't know it was fast enough for that to happen.
 
Rebel Lord said:
No really though I wish I had CAPS. He would 100% be dead or severely injured and probably have died before search and rescue got to him with out it.
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If they ever found him at all in that wilderness.

Her is a comment he made in response to someone:

Biggest take-away for aviators is it is extremely difficult to be found in remote areas. I was in radar contact with Montreal Center but that alone would have taken days to find me. Even though they had my exact GPS coord they were unable to locate me until I made smoke - and that’s with an orange parachute on the trees. A broken up plane on the ground would be impossible.
 
BrianNC said:
If they ever found him at all in that wilderness.

Her is a comment he made in response to someone:

Biggest take-away for aviators is it is extremely difficult to be found in remote areas. I was in radar contact with Montreal Center but that alone would have taken days to find me. Even though they had my exact GPS coord they were unable to locate me until I made smoke - and that’s with an orange parachute on the trees. A broken up plane on the ground would be impossible.
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The tree canopy covers a wreck extraordinarily well. The pilot came prepared, didn't panic, and the SAR folks got him out of there pretty quickly it appears.

When I learned to fly in a single engine plane we were taught to always stay over decent forced landing options, even if it meant "taking the long way around" and staying within gliding distance of a road. Probably still good advice, even in a Cirrus with a chute.

I knew two pilots personally that disappeared in the boreal forest of Northern Canada in the first half of the 1980s. One was solo in his Bonanza. The other had three passengers with him in his 182. Both were on direct VFR flight plans, and too low for any radar coverage in that region. No ELT signal in either case (those 121.5 things are near useless imo). The searches were extensive. I would have thought by now a hunter, trapper, fly fisherman or hiker might have come across the wrecks, but so far no trace of either.
 
BrianNC said:
Ah. Didn’t remember him saying that.
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Here’s that part of his post on it:

There will be much more narrative to come, but you will notice I came close to instant death from a balsam tree impaling the plane. It actually ripped my shorts and scratched my left leg. One more inch I bleed to death by myself in the woods. Three inches I die from a compound fractured leg. One foot and I am instantly killed in what would be a gruesome discovery for search and rescue.​
 
wayne said:
Here’s that part of his post on it:

There will be much more narrative to come, but you will notice I came close to instant death from a balsam tree impaling the plane. It actually ripped my shorts and scratched my left leg. One more inch I bleed to death by myself in the woods. Three inches I die from a compound fractured leg. One foot and I am instantly killed in what would be a gruesome discovery for search and rescue.​
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Got it. I actually asked him about it and just got this similar reply:

I believe it was a health balsam tree, even with the parachute the plane falls over 1500 fpm, and apply that force to a 12 inch circumference on the body of the airplane and you get violent penetration - I was one inch from that tree and am lucky to be alive.
 
sourdough44 said:
OK, 1st thing to check is the fuel. Glad they made it out alright.
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Fuel wasn't the issue. The spreading brown goo on the cowl and total loss of oil pressure probably had more bearing on his decision to pull the handle.
 
I guess my question is: was the engine still running? If yes I would have waited and steered toward a better spot, screw the engine,extract every last second out of it.
 
I dunno. There’s something off about this for me. He spent time documenting things in video that just wouldn’t seem important to me at that moment. It seemed too perfect like a reality tv show to me. Like he went back and recreated it. I sure as heck wouldn’t be pointing the camera at myself so much. He was remarkably well prepared. A bag from target with a box of duraflame sticks in it? Just seems odd.

But I guess maybe someone that does videos all the time might act like that. Just seems off to me. I’d be saving every ounce of battery and brain power for surviving, not “making a log that might help someone else”
 
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GRG55 said:
The tree canopy covers a wreck extraordinarily well
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About 10 or more years ago a 182 on floats went down about 25 miles from Juneau. Some hunters found the wreckage just last fall. Myself and a lot of others spent hours looking for the plane that summer. I think the plane was found about a mile from the lake he took off from...:(
 
AKBill said:
About 10 or more years ago a 182 on floats went down about 25 miles from Juneau. Some hunters found the wreckage just last fall. Myself and a lot of others spent hours looking for the plane that summer. I think the plane was found about a mile from the lake he took off from...:(
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That NTSB report I posted last week went down in April and was found by hikers in July. Pretty common west of here.
 
PaulS said:
I guess my question is: was the engine still running? If yes I would have waited and steered toward a better spot, screw the engine,extract every last second out of it.
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Same for me. As we don't know all the details, at the least I would have tried to head towards the lake if it was in anyway possible.
 
Salty said:
I dunno. There’s something off about this for me. He spent time documenting things in video that just wouldn’t seem important to me at that moment. It seemed too perfect like a reality tv show to me. Like he went back and recreated it. I sure as heck wouldn’t be pointing the camera at myself so much. He was remarkably well prepared. A bag from target with a box of duraflame sticks in it? Just seems odd.

But I guess maybe someone that does videos all the time might act like that. Just seems off to me. I’d be saving every ounce of battery and brain power for surviving, not “making a log that might help someone else”
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Editing.

Where I mostly flew in western, northwest and north Alaska the locals carried their clothes in trash bags.

What little survival gear I carried with me was in a Walmart bag.

When a friend of mine went down on the tundra, I air dropped some supplies to him in an A/C (Alaska Commercial) Value Center bag. He really appreciated the food and water but mostly he was happy to see the bug juice.

The company survival bag we carried had food, water purification tablets, blankets, first aid gear, fishing net, line and hooks, knife and fire starter materials and flares and other required articles. All total it weighed around 75 pounds. And do not keep it in the front of the aircraft.
 
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