There was an interesting presesntation by Sean Roberts about spinning the GA-8 Airvan. It was presented at the SETP Flight test safety workshop in 2000. It described the preparation for the spin tests and the accident. The airplane entered an unrecoverable spin, the recovery systems failed and the pilot had to jump out. A lot of things had gone not as planned including the pilot falling through the prop plane but he made it because the prop had stopped turning by that time.