And enter, stage left, Lookleft whose pathological obsession with disagreeing with everything I post – whatever the subject - is such that, not only has she searched far and wide to find an example, she disagrees with something I did not say:
Not as impossible as you might think.
I did not say it is “impossible” for sudden pilot incapacitation to result in an aircraft plummeting to the ground.
It is “possible” that a meteorite struck the aircraft, resulting in it plummeting to the ground.
As 43” observed:
[Q]uite a few known cases of pilot incapacitation tend to have the aircraft continue to fly until fuel exhaustion or the pilot wakes up and regains control. Not enter a sudden plunge to doom.
Here’s an example where an aircraft ‘landed itself’ with the pilot unconscious, and the pilot survived:
So no doubt there are examples of aircraft plummeting to the ground due to pilot incapacitation, but there are many more examples where that doesn't happen. And there is a particular characteristic of the Cirrus that is relevant here.
Thank you for your very considered and informed post, FMJ.
Rest assured: I understand that all sorts of ostensibly healthy people collapse and die, unexpectedly, of some undetected affliction. The only pilots I know who’ve died unexpectedly at the controls were the holders of Class 1 medical certificates (thus exposing the expensive Avmed façade for what it is).
With your first-hand experience in the ergonomics of a Cirrus cockpit, could you please expand on how a pilot of a Cirrus "slumps across the controls, locking them"? Exactly what bits of the pilot’s body end up where, and how does that happen despite the shoulder harness?
Have you had a look at the CAPS Event database to which I posted a link earlier in the thread? There are numerous events – and of course numerous events not involving Cirrus aircraft – where no mayday is transmitted by a conscious pilot who’s busy on higher priorities. Did you note the events of ‘unilateral’ deployment attributed to static electricity?
I do think you might have misinterpreted what some of the reported parameters mean as to airspeed versus rate of climb/descent. My theory is based on discussions I’ve had with people who understand the numbers and the Cirrus – and some comments made here – which suggest a near-vertical descent but with some kind of unusual drag … like an aircraft with parachute lines tangled around the fuselage and tailplane and the parachute barely able to inflate. My comment about the comms antenna was the result of the physical characteristics of the Comm 1 antenna compared to other antennae in that scenario. But of course we don’t know if the pilot even tried to transmit a mayday.
Earlier in this thread reference was made – correctly - to the probability that the aircraft “would have just had it’s second 10 year chute re-pack completed”. As soon I read that, I consider the risk of maintenance induced failure. The flight I fear most is the first one after my aircraft has been the subject of mandated meddling. There have been many creative attempts made on my life by LAMEs over the years – not deliberate I hope. But the fact is: people make mistakes. It will therefore be important for the ATSB to investigate the maintenance history of the CAPS in particular.
Hopefully the ATSB folk will be able to ascertain at least whether the CAPS was deployed or not. Given the location, I would be surprised if there were no eye witnesses of even a couple of seconds of the descent. You will see, from the events database, that in one tragedy arising from icing the empty parachute was seen descending minutes after the aircraft impacted the ground. If this aircraft’s parachute is found intact some distance from the impact site, that would be a ‘lay down misère’ on a number issues.