Cirrus Crashes Under Parachute Near Greensboro NC

"Chris Clarke" (shiftsandgiggles)
10/22/2014 at 10:52 • Filed to: planelopnik, crash, cirrus, brs

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The pilot was the sole occupant and was not injured when he pulled the shoot at 2,500 feet.

DISCUSSION (23)

 > Chris Clarke
10/22/2014 at 10:55

Jerusalem Rd, eh? Was Orlove piloting?

rhorizon > Chris Clarke
10/22/2014 at 10:55

It'll be interesting to see what the cause of the pull is - be it freaking out due to weather/stimuli/etc. or an actual issue. Either way, a crash you can walk away from is always the best case.

Chris Clarke > rhorizon
10/22/2014 at 10:56

Cirrus pilots have been known to pull the shoot from a bad case of indigestion.

Jcarr > Chris Clarke
10/22/2014 at 10:57

I've always been interested by these chutes. In what circumstances are they preferable to use as opposed to dead-sticking?

Chris Clarke > Jcarr
10/22/2014 at 11:00

I thinking the biggest case in support of pulling the shoot is for the passengers when the pilot become incapacitated, which has happened. Otherwise, its generally the pilot does something stupid and uses the shoot to save their ass, like flies into icing, stalls and loses control.

ajroder > Chris Clarke
10/22/2014 at 11:01

Landing (crashing) a plane via parachute sounds positively terrifying. Obviously it's better than the alternative, but still....

McMike > Chris Clarke
10/22/2014 at 11:20

#BREAKING: Parachute worked as advertised.

rhorizon > Chris Clarke
10/22/2014 at 11:35

"That cloud looks menacing..."

/chute

Two Drink Minimum > Chris Clarke
10/22/2014 at 11:41

Engine out over terrain? Depending on altitude, there may not be an option to glide to a safe landing area.

rhorizon > Chris Clarke
10/22/2014 at 11:43

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N2…

Looks like the pilot made the flight to GSO often, often filed IFR, and had made the exact same flight yesterday (in probably similar weather conditions with the rain, low clouds, etc).

I can't find historical TAF/METAR data from this morning yet at GSO, but knowing how cold it was in Northern VA, it wouldn't surprise me to hear that there might have been lower level icing possible down around 4-5,000ft, clsoe to where he filed.

Maybe he saw trace RIME/smooth and freaked out? I know I did the first time I ran into it, and not everyone would descend/turn around at first thought.

Chris Clarke > Two Drink Minimum
10/22/2014 at 11:54

True, this is another good reason for BRS, but in general the majority of engine out scenarios are from fuel exhaustion due to poor pilot planning.

Chris Clarke > rhorizon
10/22/2014 at 12:00

Nice find. Looks like good weather this morning according to this. I would guess an engine failure on climbout.

http://navlost.eu/aero/metar/?ic…

timgray > rhorizon
10/22/2014 at 12:31

It was a "I forget what this lever does..... OH CRAP!"

Thunder > rhorizon
10/22/2014 at 12:47

I'm a private pilot in Raleigh - not far from Greensboro.

Weather is great here. Genuine CAVU (ceiling and visibility unlimited) out my office window.

I'm very curious what led to the pilot going "oh chute" as well.

Thunder > Chris Clarke
10/22/2014 at 15:16

I've never been in a Cirrus. With that out of the way, I don't know whether I could bring myself to pull the 'chute, even if I were.

My time is in Pipers, Cessnas, and unloggable time in Grumman and Rockwell. There's no 'chute to pull. If something goes wrong, you continue to fly it, going through your contingency plans, etc. Even if you put it in a farmer's field, it's still quite possibly not going to be a full write-off for the airplane.

Going under canopy in a Cirrus, to my understanding, renders the airframe permanently destroyed. Between the parachute deployment itself, and the subsequent impact with the ground (it's not light), the plane will never fly again. You'll probably recover the instruments, and maybe *MAYBE* the engine, but that's it.

If I were doing the math in my head, I don't know that I'd pull the 'chute vs taking a traditional approach of finding the best field.

Since the Cirrus can get into an unrecoverable spin, I could see doing it then, but otherwise... I don't know that I'd pull the loud handle.

Chris Clarke > Thunder
10/22/2014 at 15:29

Pretty much my sentiments exactly. I'd probably pull it if I had a heart attack. Technically the insurance will total a Cirrus as a hull loss after a chute deployment, I have seen a few make it back into the skies. I don't think I'd volunteer to fly in one. But I guess you don't think about things like insurance and cost of repairs when you're faced with an emergency.

Thunder > Chris Clarke
10/22/2014 at 15:45

Probably correct, not thinking such things when faced with it.

But I counted wings and came up to two, still had tail surfaces, still had an engine (operational or not)... I'm not sure I'd do it.

m-b-w loves his SUBAROO > Chris Clarke
10/22/2014 at 15:47

Dude, do you live in Greensboro too?

Two Drink Minimum > Chris Clarke
10/22/2014 at 18:22

Oh yeah, I get that. But sometimes a maintenance slip up is the culprit. That's the thing about single-engine aircraft. All your eggs are in that one basket, which is loaded with moving parts.

Chris Clarke > Two Drink Minimum
10/22/2014 at 20:05

That sounds reasonable, and I don't have numbers to back this up, but I would think that fatalities due to maintenance related engine failure on single pistons has to be virtually nil. That's just from my experience and research on accidents. You can justify the chute as last ditch insurance, but it ends up being a crutch.

Two Drink Minimum > Chris Clarke
10/24/2014 at 15:16

Unfortunately, I guess we can add mid-air collisions to compelling scenarios for the chute. Apparently the 2 people in the SR-22 survived, while those in the helicopter it struck on approach died. Just terrible.

Chris Clarke > Two Drink Minimum
10/24/2014 at 15:34

I was reading about this and apparently Alan Klapmeier, who co-founded Cirrus, survived a mid air collision and as a result vowed to design an airplane with a parachute.

Two Drink Minimum > Chris Clarke
10/24/2014 at 16:02

Fascinating.