Reports of a light aircraft down in Blue Mountains
 

Looks like US rego, very lucky guys...

Plane crashes in Lawson | Blue Mountains Gazette

Cirrus I think. Came down under its 'chute. Interesting experience.

And https://twitter.com/weirderbetter

According to that media report
"One witness also reported seeing a man eject from the plan before it went down". Must have been the cirrus launching the parachute

Great that there were no injuries.

Ops normal...

Just looked up the rego, it appears to be a brand spanka, first rego in Jan 14.

Out of interest, anyone know what minimum height AGL the chutes are effective?

It looks like the Cirrus demonstrator that was at WOI last weekend

A bit of video on the guy's facebook page here of it, quite high, coming down with parachute deployed. Appears to be quite nose-down. I guess the parachute mechanism is quite rear of COG.

https://www.facebook.com/jugglingshop

A very good demonstration indeed then :}

So .. what's happens if I pull this handle........:ooh:

Had just arrived from the States a little over 2 weeks ago. Very lucky the donk didn't quit then instead! :eek:

So it FIRST arrived 2 weeks ago or it happened to fly back to the US some time between when I photographed this exact aircraft at the Tyabb airshow on 9th March 2014 and this weekend?

This is a Carbon model and a very expensive one or at least it was !

For the record skkm, new Cirrus are usually shipped to the dealers via sea container these days. The earlier generations including the early model glass versions circa 2004 were all flown here on their own wings as the early fuselage did not allow the wing to be detached or at least not seperately.

Love the madia again......"Cessna-type". They used to call every aircraft Cessna before.....I think the new generation is a bit more cautious or they slowly catching on that not every aircraft is made by Cessna.....:confused:

According to Channel 7 the Cessna's engine exploded and the aircraft spiraled out of control.....the occupants of several houses were in mortal danger as the aircraft could have exploded at any time....as the vision they showed saw the Cirrus descending steadily under the parachute. Got to love the mainstream media, proof they have no idea what they're talking about.

2000ft is the minimum mentioned but a demonstration of 920 ft loss has been achieved.

XXX, apologies - it first arrived from the US - under its own steam with wings attached - in February, and has more recently returned from a slightly shorter over water jaunt to NZ.

Can't these things glide. Gotta wonder, pulling the handle at the first sign of trouble. What ever happened to the good old forced landing.

Was it a mechanical failure or fuel exhaustion?

Also gotta wonder how insurance companies view the parachute brigade. Can the aircraft be repaired or is it a write off after the chutes been deployed?

I'm not suggesting this has happened here, but there seems to be quite a few examples of pilots getting in over their head and using the get out of jail card of pulling the handle. I strongly suspect some pilots are happy to tread where angels fear to tread as they know they can pull the pin so to speak and parachute to "safety".

27/09 - Well, you have to admit, a parachute landing regardless of whether it was totally necessary, is a whole lot better than the usual ending, with aircraft and pax scattered over many metres and in many pieces.
Who cares if the Cirrus is a write-off? The insurance company owns it the minute you start heading back to terra firma with little hope of recovery - that's what insurance premiums are for. Far better to destroy a fully-replaceable aircraft than a number of irreplaceable pax.
The fact that there were no injuries is a massive cost-saving to the nation, just in itself. Injured pax cost hundreds of thousands each to transport, operate on, and rebuild their health. Deaths are even costlier - they are difficult to even quantify in full.

My thoughts too, I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong but I don't think you can purchase a Cirrus without this option. For that reason and the exorbitant cost of the mandatory 10 year service on this "safety" device, the Cirrus would be my very last choice in performance singles.

27/09, go ahead, be my guest... so you could land an SR22 here over the fence at 75-80 knots?

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=lawso...ralia&t=h&z=13