I am wondering if there is any study on the reasons for late BRS deployments?
I don’t know of a formal study but some potential reasons include:
1. Because in the heat of the moment the pilot forgets that BRS is available.
2. Some will be because the Pilot doesn’t believe in the system or doesn’t trust it despite the evidence.
3. Another key element is the muscle memory involved in pulling: in the Cirrus system, it takes 60 lbs to activate so just reaching up and yanking won’t work: the training recommends doing a chin-up.Doing this in a simulator is invaluable!
4. It is also important to fly with the safety pin removed. There have been tragic cases when pilots have tried to deploy and been unable to do so because the pin was still inserted.
Perhaps the most important point to make here is that type-specific emergencies handling training - preferably in a full motion simulator - makes a huge difference to the successful use of these systems. Having done this myself I can not recommend it highly enough.
All that said: I don’t think this incident was survivable even with a quick use of CAPS. A stall / spin at circuit height simply would not give enough time for the system to work.