Cirrus parachutes into the Solent
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There has been one fatal accident in which a non-survivable mid air collision triggered the parachute and caused a fire.
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Looking at the number of people on the beach, would imagine that paid a factor. Imagine finding a safe space and dealing with whatever had gone wrong was not a real option
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Interesting to review his day out on Flight Radar. Down to Exeter area along the coast with a good tailwind and return into quite a headwind. Flight ended 3 miles from destination, makes one wonder if he had enough fuel and suffered from ‘Get home itis’?
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Hat and coat....
Gnome de PPRuNe
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What do you think?
Fortunately everyone was ok.
One has to wonder why these Cirrus’ are crashing, it’s such a new design but many are coming to grief?
There is also, of course, the added consideration of the aircraft landing on persons under parachute (fortunately it didn’t).
Fortunately everyone was ok.
One has to wonder why these Cirrus’ are crashing, it’s such a new design but many are coming to grief?
There is also, of course, the added consideration of the aircraft landing on persons under parachute (fortunately it didn’t).
Not that new a design, been built since 2001
Ttfn
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The cirrus training says always pull the chute unless directly over a field. That was drummed in. Their reasoning is that apparently survival rate so far is 100 percent under a cirrus chute. Not the case with their forced landings. I know i would pull the chute rather than ditch or land on a less than ideal beach such as that situation.
Of course plenty of aircraft must have been destroyed when they would have managed a power off landing, but you don't know in advance which is which. Lives have been saved at the cost of some additional aircraft destroyed.

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Regrettably, there is much less data on the number of successful forced landings than the number of unsuccessful ones, which tends to skew opinion somewhat. When I've flown a Cirrus, I have absolutely maintained that I might use the CAPS in some situations, but my default option would be a proper forced landing with the hope of using the aircraft again, and I have never flown in situations where I have relied on planning to use CAPS (eg IMC down to the ground). That said, one has to be (a) good enough and (b) in currency at such things to take that route. A gliding background and history of successful field landings certainly informs my perspective.
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The cirrus training says always pull the chute unless directly over a field. That was drummed in. Their reasoning is that apparently survival rate so far is 100 percent under a cirrus chute. Not the case with their forced landings. I know i would pull the chute rather than ditch or land on a less than ideal beach such as that situation.
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.
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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.
In life, we take risks every time we walk out the door. Unfortunately, that’s the way it is.
The attitude of aircrew was the same when ejection seats were first introduced in that they’d stay with the aircraft through ‘machismo’ (I can recover this) rather than the easier “Martin Baker let-down.”
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We had one come down behind our house a few years back - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...shire-25344780