Cirrus Lands via Parachute in Nantucket

"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in message
...
Aluckyguess wrote:
He is alive so he's not to dumb. He has money so who cares about the
plane.


So do those flying Cirrus have the required hood time waived and an aren't
taught to do a 180 in IMC?

Obviously a climbing 180 would have been in order.

Maybe to you, I wasn't in the plane. You have no idea what happened. Maybe
he was having chest pains from the stress of the flight. Maybe the g1000 (if
equipped) just went blue screen.
What we are trying to point out is we were not there the PIC made the
decision and he is still alive so who can question that.

Judah wrote:

Owen Rogers wrote in
:

Looks like another save for BRS and Cirrus.

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?

Don't know, or what the options were. I do know that weather had generally
been good yesterday and got drastically worse around the accident time. The
accident time was around 8:45 PM, aka 180045. They might have been in the
soup for a short while before they pulled the handle. Check out how fast the
low vis and low ceiling appeared after a beautiful cloudless day:

KACK 180100Z 20007KT 3SM BR SCT001 BKN007 BKN015 20/19 A2981 RMK AO2 RAE0054
KACK 180053Z 21006KT 2 1/2SM -RA BR BKN001 OVC015 20/19 A2982 RMK AO2 RAB17
SLP098 P0001 T02000189
KACK 180050Z 21006KT 2 1/2SM -RA BR OVC001 20/19 A2982 RMK AO2 RAB17 P0001
KACK 180045Z 21008KT 1 3/4SM -RA BR OVC001 20/19 A2982 RMK AO2 RAB17 P0000
****
KACK 180025Z 22008KT 1/2SM -RA FG VV001 20/19 A2982 RMK AO2 RAB17 P0000
KACK 180018Z 22008KT 1SM -RA BR VV001 20/19 A2982 RMK AO2 RAB17 P0000
KACK 180014Z 21008KT 2 1/2SM BR SCT001 20/19 A2982 RMK AO2
KACK 172353Z 22007KT 6SM HZ CLR 20/17 A2982 RMK AO2 SLP097 T02000172 10256
20194 58003
KACK 172253Z 25008KT 10SM CLR 21/13 A2983 RMK AO2 SLP103 T02110133

Owen Rogers wrote in
:

Don't know, or what the options were. I do know that weather had
generally been good yesterday and got drastically worse around the
accident time. The accident time was around 8:45 PM, aka 180045. They
might have been in the soup for a short while before they pulled the
handle. Check out how fast the low vis and low ceiling appeared after a
beautiful cloudless day:

[...]
P0001 KACK 180045Z 21008KT 1 3/4SM -RA BR OVC001 20/19 A2982 RMK AO2
RAB17 P0000 ****
[...]
KACK 180014Z 21008KT 2 1/2SM BR SCT001 20/19 A2982 RMK AO2

I'm not trying to be judgemental, but the weather was below VFR minimums for
at least 1/2 hour by then.

Do you know where they started?

Judah,


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.

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

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

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.

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.


And how exactly would your competent pilot above get into that spin?

If "competent" pilots weren't doing dumb things quite regularly, 90
percent or so of all GA accidents wouldn't happen. So, in theory, your
remark sounds nice, but either the current training rules allow a
majority of incompetent pilots to get through, or competent pilots are
way more fallible than you seem to think. Heck, even a Scott Crossfield
can die in a thunderstorm. If that guy wasn't competent, most of us
have to stop flying at all.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

On Aug 19, 11:23 am, Thomas Borchert
wrote:
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.

And how exactly would your competent pilot above get into that spin?

That's a reasonable question. The answer is that "competent" doesn't
mean perfect. A competent pilot may make a mistake resulting in a
spin, or airframe icing, or the like. At that point, there may be no
safe way to recover without pulling the chute.

But a competent pilot doesn't pull the chute simply because he doesn't
know how to fly the plane in conditions he's supposed to be trained
for!

"NS" == NonSense == AirplaneSense opined:

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

Really, did you tell Cirrus management that? Getting into a spin is
something that a competent pilot first of all shouldn't get into at
all, and secondly should be able to get out of. If I had a BRS and
got over my skills for whatever reason, damn right I'd use the chute.

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

A parachute descent is not entirely uncontrolled; the rate of descent
is very controlled, unlike a true uncontrolled descent by a
disoriented pilot. Yes, it could have been a *lot* worse if the pilot
hadn't used the chute.

NS Cruise flight in simple instrument conditions is something
NS that all private pilots are required to be capable of.

No. They're required to have received instruction under *simulated*
instrument conditions and be able to demonstrate a modest level of
proficiency in *simulated* conditions of instrument-only flight on
their checkride and BFRs. *Actual* instrument flight--especially at
night when you blunder into it unexpectedly and don't have an
instructor to hand the controls to--is utterly and entirely
different. I think the FARs should require some actual IMC time before
granting the IFR ticket and maybe the PP license, but for now they
don't. The pilot was probably as competent to *fly* the plane as most
VFR pilots, but also probably exhibited poor *judgement* to get into
that situation.

--
If you were a poor Indian with no weapons, and a bunch of
conquistadors came up to you and asked where the gold was, I
don't think it would be a good idea to say, "I swallowed it. So
sue me."
- Jack Handey

Thomas Borchert wrote:
Judah,

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.

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

Getting out alive doesn't mean he got out smart.

Matt

Does anyone know the N number or if it was a VFR or IFR flight? What was the
TAF for the time interval? What about the VFR and IFR requirements for fuel
reserves?

The whole thing doesn't make sense- it seems like there might have been a
lot of other options prior to pulling the chute.