REFLECTOR: OT Plane hits an apartment building in NYC

Dave Black dvblack at comcast.net
Sun Oct 15 15:21:43 CDT 2006


Richard,

> I have not followed the story, but I wonder why he did not pop the 
> chute? My only guess is, everything happened too fast and did not give 
> any time to fire the rocket on the ballistic parachute.

It's only speculation, But I can think of several potential reasons for 
not popping the chute:

1) The aircraft was too low for the 'chute to be effective. Cirrus has 
demonstrated a 920 ft altitude loss in a spin, but recommends the 'chute 
be deployed at or above 2000 ft if possible.

2) Things happened so fast from the time they realized they needed to 
make a U-turn until the crash they didn't have time to consider deployment.

3) Deploying the 'chute would guarantee the plane is destroyed. Yes, its 
occupants would likely have walked away from the crash site, but it's 
really hard for a pilot to intentionally sacrifice his plane. [Note how 
many fatalities there are each year from pilots attempting to return to 
the runway following an engine failure on takeoff.] Unfortunately, I 
think it's human nature to try to save the bird -- right up until it's 
too late to save yourself.


Dave Black


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