Peter wrote:
Did the engine actually stop, and how far from the airport was the chute pulled?
It’s unclear if the engine stopped but the chute was pulled when the pilot was on a 3 mile final as recorded on ATC live.
Cirrus_Man wrote:
chock up 3 more lives saved.
Guy pulls chute on final – 3 lives saved, right.
If the engine was producing power, then he made the wrong decision.
Pulling the chute does pose a substantial health risk to people on board (spine/neck injury) and people on the ground.
I could not make out most of the radio conversation but it didn’t sound like there was anything exciting going on.
One could work out from the sound track background noise spectrum whether the engine had any issues. I have the tools to do that but it’s a hassle. Plus you get the sample only when the pilot is transmitting.
If the engine was producing power, then he made the wrong decision.
It depends. If we’re talking a normally functioning engine, yes. If the engine is only providing partial power I’m not so sure. There was an ATSB study some years back that showed that most fatalities came from attempts to get partial engine failures back to base. There were not many good forced landing options over the approach area so if the engine was going, not an unreasonable decision.
I’ve posted this thread earlier, if you to Der Spiegel and scroll down to the ‘video’ section you get a compilation of various videos of the landing.
Having had the benefit of a forced landing after an engine failure on base at 800ft with approach flaps already deployed, and ending up in a field with not even a scratch on the paintwork, I have nothing to prove, and also know that I was lucky. I had no choice on landing direction, I could not tell the true nature of the surface and depth of any ruts to any reasonable accuracy until I was very low. Also, it was less than one minute from recognition of engine failure to touchdown (field was close in so had to steepen the approach). Not much time to think, really, after the initial “WTF?” moment.
If the aircraft had had a parachute, instead of trying to deadstick it in or die like a man trying, I would have pulled it. And that was when I was an instructor and had ZERO doubt that I would make that particular field. Not so current in my forced landings now, even more so.
Faced with an unreliable engine, I would probably keep it at 1,000ft or above and fly to the overhead, and only mentally switch from “chute” to “land” mode when well within gliding distance of the field.
When life or health is at stake, given a, say, 10% chance of ending up inverted and on fire, I’d rather spend 300k of the insurance company’s money. And the aircraft has already let me down, so frankly deserves it.
There were no reports of the engine having stopped or producing less power. All we heard was “loss of oil pressure” which could also be “loss of display of oil pressure”.
Pulling the chute is a very dangerous operation — for the people on board and the people on the ground. If the engine is still running, the chute would not be my first option. Getting in a safe position for a deadstick landing would be my priority. Landing without engine from overhead a generous airfield would be much preferable to pulling the chute.
Even though most chute incidents had a good outcome for the passengers, it is a very dangerous operation. You have no directional control, you impact the ground with a lot of force (more than what is good for you) and a million things can happen. Hit a powerline, get stuck there and then fall down and you’re dead, etc.
It makes little sense to to have an opinion before we have the facts. So let’s discuss this later.
Someone once told me the CAPS is just there because they couldn’t get the Cirrus spin-certified.
The rest is all marketing…
