Originally Posted by
Right Hand Thread
Yes, except I didn't write "ditch or land on a less than ideal beach". I said (paraphrase) glide toward the beach first and thereby have a better chance of landing on terra firma than just pull without thinking and ride down as a passenger with absolutely no control, possibly to the detriment of oneself or more importantly the people below. The photo of the aircraft inverted should make the risk to occupants obvious, people rarely drown on dry land.
BRS systems are a great tool but in too many cases people think they abrogate all responsibility. The pilot chooses to take the risk, the innocents below do not.
This is an argument that has been made quite often but which overlooks a couple of important points. Whilst here are risks to people on the ground associated both with CAPS and an engine out glide to land. In the glide to land scenario, you have an aircraft gliding in silently at or above stall speed and carrying all the kinetic energy that implies. There have been several cases of people on the ground being killed by this, one example being
this accident
In a BRS deployment you hear a loud bang as the rocket deploys, then you see a big red parachute and an aircraft descending at less than a quarter of its stall speed and carrying a tenth of the kinetic energy.
That’s why several CAPS events have been filmed: people had time to identify what had happened and pull out a phone to film it. By extension, they would also have had time to get out of the way if necessary.
I might also add that in 96 successful CAPS pulls over 20 years not one person on the ground has ever been injured. That’s not to say it is absolutely impossible in all circumstances, but it strongly suggests that the relative risk is much lower if CAPS is used.
There is also the fact that all pilots and passengers in these CAPS pulls have also survived whereas there have been plenty of fatal accidents in which pilots have not been successful in gliding to land.