AirBear

Chute came in handy, engine failure on departure. Popped the chute and came down on the edge of a small body of water. Very close to a parking lot full of cars thou.

https://twitter.com/wrtv/status/1596...d%3D20221125-0


https://i.imgur.com/r3mfrbu.png

wankel7

That smoke trail - did it get hit by a manpad?

rickair7777

I'd actually like to know what happened to the motor. My daughter's boyfriend's PPL dad is buying one apparently

At least the parachute worked.

Pilot4000

My guess is bird strike. Those Williams engines are pretty reliable.

AirBear

I don't know what the area looks like or their altitude when the engine failed but I'd think twice about giving up control to the parachute. Maybe they weren't high enough to make if back to the runway, or maybe the area was too built up for a safe engine out landing.
Once you pull that chute you give up choosing a landing spot. I can think of all kinds of bad things that can happen, especially in heavy industrial areas.

WHACKMASTER

Sure, because in heavy industrial areas it’s much better to attempt a forced landing carrying airspeed over getting set down relatively gently by chute. 🙄

rickair7777

There is a degree of sketch when you commit to that thing, similar to a mil ejection seat. You need to be in the envelope, and the thing needs to work properly or you're in the deep kimchee.

But that grey area depends on the pilot too... low-time PPLs are probably more prone to pull the handle than you or I would be.

Brickfire

I was skeptical at first. At least with the pistons at nearly 25 years and dozens and dozens (? Over 100) pulls nobody has obviously been harmed by the chute. Have been a number of people who died for not pulling it

pangolin

pics looked like it was pretty wide open and flat. Maybe insurance requires a chute pull.

JohnBurke

You're sure about that?

Other than the aircraft that slowly burned under canopy, during descent, and was caught on film? Other than most of the pulls that occurred needlessly? Other than Cirrus's insistence on calling each pull a "save" when it was, in most cases, quite the opposite?

The CAPS system on the Cirrus has a clear, long-term effect of inducing pilots to treat the parachute like a portable alternate airport, flying into conditions where they never should have been, and that they wouldn't have entered, without the false confidence of the parachute. Under such circumstances, when the CAPS is fired off, it's hard to claim a "save" when the owners manual states quite clearly the warning that deploying the parachute is likely to cause destruction of the parachute, and may result in death. Deployments such as in the mountains at night in IMC in thunderstorms, for example...might be termed a "save" because the occupants didn't die. By the same twisted logic, one might fire a rifle down mainstreet, and when one by sheer luck no one dies, pronounce it no big deal.