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

Well said onetrack. Fully agree.

Figures have been thrown around for years that the average death can cost industry / community in excess of $1m by the time superannuation, insurances, court costs etc are paid out.

There were 4 adult male POB's in this crash. The aircraft was likely valued at circa AUD$700k.

Now if only I could fit one into my 172 for my rare flights over tiger country.

Avgas I believe you can have an aftermarket BRS fitted to a 172 and other aircraft. CAPS has been deployed not fully but successfully at altitudes lower than that stated by XXX as well.

CAPS
 

Given the twig that is a nose wheel and the speed across fence I think having the chute up your sleeve is a valuable thing

When the engine quits over terrain like that, it's not time to be all macho and prove that you're a better pilot because you can glide an aircraft.

Pull the chute, who cares. The end result is more likely to be better than a forced landing in that sort of area.

morno

As long as the chute works!

Once you pull that handle, there is no going back! Not a decision I would like to face!

Chutes on light aircraft singles are like air bags in vehicles. Ideally don't leave home without them. Anything to prevent an off-field arrival in tiger country is a great bonus. They, like air bags and seat belts can't be the answer to every situation but today demonstrates a great result to those on-board!

It is also interesting that FAR's require chutes for people flying aircraft that are certified for aerobatics no matter what...

pulling the chute is a serious decision, you WILL get injured. and you WILL destroy the aircraft. if out west, and all goes quiet, nice big flat paddocks, nice straight farm roads, is the chute the best option? over tiger country?

from what i have heard, 1 passenger has a broken neck, and another a broken back.. and seeing the chute pulled on another cirrus years ago near Hoxton park, you will most likely, or certainly get seriously injured pulling the chute.. that aircraft was within 1 mile of Hoxton park aerodrome, and pulled the chute, both pilots were very seriously injured.

I just dont trust any aircraft that states in the SOPs for emergency procedures, to pull the chute as the only option..

Not true, certainly not USA FARs.

Does anyone know the RoD with the chute fully deployed? I'm guessing the impact is still going to hurt.

Was in Wanaka two weeks ago :-0

900 - 1680fpm descent rate.

Equivalent to jumping from 7 feet.

News here reported one passenger had back pain, but nothing about broken backs or necks. Hopefully the news was correct.

I get the impression the tail snapped off when it hit the powerline as tail separation is not normally part of CAPS deployment...


So Jabba do you reckon this one had a TCM turbo versus the TAT one?

Yeah they can glide so long as you have somewhere to go to tiger country there if you did not notice
Cheers

Wait. Cirrus have a full motion sim? Crikey.

so whats the expected G force on your body from a drop from 13 ft?

Careful with your interpretations ...

First description,

A 7 ft jump, say off a low roof of a house onto your feet / butt / head.

Second description,

A 13 ft "drop" in the aircraft.

Not the same thing as the 13 ft drop includes crumpling undercarriage and honeycomb seats.

Ultralights - Many people have survived falls where the forces on the body exceeded 150G and even 200G. It all depends on what you land on, how you land, and if anything is there to break your fall. See the "case studies" in the link below.

Mechanical analysis of survival in falls from heights of fifty to one hundred and fifty feet -- De Haven 6 (1): 62 -- Injury Prevention

Remember the rear gunner who fell out of an aircraft without a parachute at 18,000' during WW2 and landed in pine trees and snowdrift, and survived with only a broken ankle??

Nicholas Alkemade - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In other cases, people have suffered brain damage and died merely from falling over and hitting their head on solid pavement - or died from balcony falls as small as 10'.

I was forced to jump out of a tree from 13' up as a 10 yr old, and I'm still here to tell you about it. In fact, I never even suffered any jarring - and not even a scratch.

These blokes in the Cirrus had powerlines and trees to break their fall, and they were sitting in comfortable seats. Any physical damage they may have incurred would more than likely have been through getting thrown about inside the cabin as they touched down in a pretty uneven manner.

The media stated only one pax was transported to hospital "for observation" - thus indicating some possible concussion.

Hang on a minute, 200G is 200G no matter what you land on.

Landing on something soft is better than landing on something hard at the same velocity because the soft landing spreads deceleration over a longer time, thereby reducing the peak force experienced.

Butfli - Sorry, I could have worded that paragraph better. I wasn't suggesting that you could land on a pile of feathers and sustain 200G forces on your body, and then land on rocks with a 200G force and suffer vastly different results.
What I did mean, was that what you land on, will alter the amount of G's your body sustains, according to the decelerative ability of the material you land on.

For those who reckon they could have flown to a satisfactory landing where this bloke ended up - here's the address where they landed.

https://www.google.com.au/maps/place...93898427f24a08

These blokes are pretty lucky, they only just missed a monstrous HT powerline. I'll hazard a guess that HT powerline is 66kV or 132kV.
I don't know how much control the pilot still had when descending under the 'chute, I'll wager it wasn't anywhere near as much as he would have liked!