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Cirrus BRS / chute discussion, and would you REALLY pull it?

I think there always remains some learning value.

The Cirrus fleet is huge, it flies a lot of more demanding mission profiles i.e. pushes the mission boundaries further out, and the screw-ups are therefore worth examining, by anyone flying more than a Sunny Sunday burger run. You will learn a lot more from them that from studying accidents of some much smaller type fleet. For example the SR22+SR22T fleet is about 10x bigger than the TB20+TB21 fleet. And the use of the chute means the pilot is, in most cases, able to tell the story.

Very few of us have nothing left to learn

It would be good if the Cirrus-published list of chute pulls included tail numbers because you could then get the proper report and find out what happened. The brief summaries (107 posted above) mostly don’t look too good (a lot of stuff like “got disoriented so pulled the chute”) and the pilots get ridiculed.

It is as wrong to mindlessly ridicule Cirrus owners for pulling the chute as it is to mindlessly ridicule those who are asking questions about what happened.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

It would be good if the Cirrus-published list of chute pulls included tail numbers because you could then get the proper report and find out what happened. The brief summaries (107 posted above) mostly don’t look too good (a lot of stuff like “got disoriented so pulled the chute”) and the pilots get ridiculed.

Peter, in this day and age, LMGTFY.

You might recall that you questioned whether the chute pull due to spatial disorientation was due to IMC without an IR;,I pointed out that the pilot, although relatively inexperienced, was in fact instrument rated. How? Simply googling ‘Feb 2006, Wagner, SD Cirrus accident’. The date and location are, after all, known. Just by adding the words Cirrus accident you find plenty of data about the registration.

This was in fact N751CD. Adding that to the search engine brought me up this link which is the report into the accident…..

You can do the same with other aircraft incidents.

Last Edited by Steve6443 at 31 Jan 20:48
EDL*, Germany

Yes; of course you can find them. My point was that most people don’t bother to go beyond the brief summaries.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Cobalt wrote:

Meanwhile,

this event will be added to the list of “saves” on some Cirrus forum
somebody will point out that this is not a “real save”, because of (insert any of the above)

There is a lack of logic here. It’s the same kind of (un)logic as being “lucky/unlucky”. You had to take a business trip lasting a few days on very short notice, and had to leave there and then to catch the plane. The next day, while away, you get a phone call from the fire department telling you that your house has burned to the ground in an explosive fire. The fire department also tells you that if you had been at sleep in your bed when the fire started, you would be dead by now. Do you consider yourself lucky or unlucky? Most people would consider themselves extremely lucky. After all, you are still alive, even though the house and everything inside is gone. As by a miracle, the unexpected business trip saved your life.

A few days later, it’s discovered that the fire was caused by pure negligence from your side. Large volumes of gasoline stored together with self combustible material in your closet. To make things worse, you had made the plans to fix everything to make it 100% fireproof. It would take less than an hour, and you had just started doing it when you suddenly had to leave for the business trip. Would you still consider yourself lucky? Most people wouldn’t. They would think some devilish things were going on, or start to speculate about sabotage and whatnot.

Did the unexpected business trip save your life, or didn’t it? Did the trip cause you to lose your house, or didn’t it? There is no correct answers to these questions because all answers would involve one or more "IF"s. If the trip hadn’t happened, you still could have been distracted by somethings else, or you could end up securing the stuff the wrong way, making it worse etc. There is an infinite number of things that could have happened – IF …

My point is, the only thing we can be reasonable sure about is what actually has happened, and why it happened. What happened above? You lost your house and everything in it due to an explosive fire. That’s what happened. Why did it happen? It happened because you stored large volumes of gasoline and self combustible material in your closet. And that’s it. There is nothing more to it. Did the business trip save your life? maybe, maybe not, but no matter how we think about it, it becomes pure speculation, because it involves "IF"s. That question is not a part of what actually happened. It’s not a part of reality.

It’s exactly the same with the Cirrus above. What happened? A Cirrus had an emergency chute being pulled, landing in some desolate area. Why did it happen? We don’t know yet, but it looks like the PIC was in it over his head and saw no other solution than to pull the chute. That’s what has happened, and nothing more than that. Did the chute save his life? Maybe, maybe not. There is no way to answer that question without including "IF"s and all the other things that could have happened.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Touching CAPS

Why do Cirrus pilots reach up to the CAPS handle during the climb out and call “CAPS available”? Is it the Cirrus pilot version of a quick prayer, are they seeking reassurance it is still in place?

EHLE / Lelystad, Netherlands, Netherlands

Why do Cirrus pilots reach up to the CAPS handle during the climb out

I believe it is because in their ‘conversion’ to the Cirrus of pilots who have many previous flying hours in ‘ordinary’ aircraft, they are trying hard to install into them the importance of rapid use of the (new) parachute system.
Cirrus pilots have often recounted to me how in their training they are asked to practice their response to events like Engine Out; Fuel loss etc. by being asked what they would do next: Replies like ‘Gain Height’; or ‘Run these checks’ etc are met with the adamant response: ”Pull the Chute!”
Old habits die hard . . .

Rochester, UK, United Kingdom

Same reason as some SEP drivers call “airspeed alive” or “positive rate gear up”.

T28
Switzerland

Peter_Mundy wrote:

Why do Cirrus pilots reach up to the CAPS handle during the climb out and call “CAPS available”?

Makes perfect sense. Below that altitude, they must land like anyone else if somewhat goes wrong. Above it, they can pull the CAPS. It is a simple checklist item.

Actually, this kind of thing also was very prominent in Spaceflight, where the capabilities at each stage of launch and approach are called out. So if something goes wrong, you don’t need to first check what the options are, you know them.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

If they can’t locate the handle in normal operations, how they can locate it under stress?
Also as Peter_G mentioned it works well for those who are not used to the Cirrus

Reminds me of a friend, he had +500 jumps and does some fancy stuff with parachutes, I took him gliding as passenger where for safety we had to wear “gliders parachute” (only one single handle in chest and one canopy), when I told him he would definitely know how to open the chute it in the case of a bail out far better than me: he pointed his hand behind his back first (main canopy handle on the back) before bring it to left/right on his chest (reserve canopy cutaway/handle on the chest), I think he would have been very brave to jump out of the mid-air collision first but slow to open it, old habits just don’t die

Last Edited by Ibra at 18 Nov 20:38
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

T28 wrote:

Same reason as some SEP drivers call “airspeed alive” or “positive rate gear up”.

But those calls make sense. Check the ASI is working before take off. Call positive rate – checks that you are actually climbing. I imagine that CAPS will function without the callout.

EHLE / Lelystad, Netherlands, Netherlands
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