On Aug 19, 4:53 am, Thomas Borchert
wrote:
Apparently a Cirrus was attempting to land ACK VFR last night when they
ran into weather (fog and low visibility after sunset on the island are
common in the summer). They pulled the Ballistic Recovery System
parachute about 5 miles northeast of ACK.

Wouldn't it have been easier to just turn around?

Ah, the Monday morning quarterback ;-)

The NTSB records are full of pilots who thought "I can save this by keeping
on flying..." The chute is meant to avoid exactly this kind of situation.

The Cirrus chute is meant to recover from situations that competent
piloting cannot reliably recover from (e.g. spins). It's not meant to
substitute for knowing how to fly.

How the pilot got into it is a completely different question. BUt he got
out alive.

Luckily, the pilot and passenger were not fatally injuried. But the
uncontolled parachute descent of an aircraft is dangerous to the
occupants and to people on the ground. It could have been a lot worse.

Cruise flight in simple instrument conditions is something that all
private pilots are required to be capable of. A pilot whose
proficiency has lapsed should not be flying without an instructor--
especially not to ACK at night, a place that's notorious for poor
visibility (ACK is next to MVY, where JFK Jr. crashed after losing
sight of the horizon). And that's not even considering that ACK was
reported IMC for half an hour prior to the parachute deployment (so
even a proficient pilot should not have been flying there VFR).

Still, you're right that if the pilot was not competent to fly the
aircraft, pulling the chute was probably the best choice at that
point. The fault lies not with that decision, but with all the
decisions leading up to it, starting with the choice to get in the
plane.