another Cirrus engine failure. Another chute saves

FlyingElvii said:
"One of the nice features of this aircraft is it has a shoot," said Brian O'Keefe, of the Des Moines Fire Department.
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Usually people complain about shooting...
 
That's amazing. Kudos. So glad everyone is ok.

Makes me want one.
 
DesertNomad said:
Good thing it had that "shoot".
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FlyingElvii said:
"One of the nice features of this aircraft is it has a shoot," said Brian O'Keefe, of the Des Moines Fire Department.
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Good thing. I'm surprised more planes don't have "shoots" since they've been around since 192 (CXCII), when I think the Emperor Commodus made them mandatory before he was assassinated.
KCCI 'News' said:
Plane parachutes have been around since 192, but according to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the FAA didn't approve them for use until 1993
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This is why I hate journalists.
 
Lol it was an invention just waiting for a purpose
 
Curious why it left people without power. Did it drift into power lines? What caused the fire? I will be curious to hear more about this one.
 
Curious as to what started the failure cascade.
 
Pretty good to see it do is job at 800-900 feet.That is on the very low end of the envelope
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Pretty good to see it do is job at 800-900 feet.That is on the very low end of the envelope
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That does seem low, but if the aircraft is under control I would imagine you can be lower than if you are descending rapidly, etc. How long does the rocket take to deploy?
 
Somedudeintn said:
That does seem low, but if the aircraft is under control I would imagine you can be lower than if you are descending rapidly, etc. How long does the rocket take to deploy?
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8 seconds in the older models. I believe 10 or 12 in the newer ones. My min pull altitude is 500 agl. I think the newer ones it is 1000.
 
So what caused the engine failure? Sure seems to happen a lot in the Cirrus models . . .
 
These Cirrus engine failures are certainly odd. What's the oldest Cirrus in the world? 17 years old?

There can be a pretty limited number of explanations for this:

1. Maintenance Issues. This seems unlikely, given the high-dollar nature of the Cirrus, but is it possible that the owners are overextended financially and are skating on basic maintenance?

2. Design issues. Certain aircraft brands have experienced higher than normal engine problems over the years, due to tight cowling (heat issues), high horsepower demands, or other design issues. Is there a Cirrus design problem firewall forward?

3. Fuel issues. With 100 LL becoming a boutique fuel, are we seeing problems with the fuel supply?

Besides maintenance, design, and fuel, I'm hard-pressed to come up with another plausible theory for engine failure. Anyone got a better handle on this?
 
Jay Honeck said:
These Cirrus engine failures are certainly odd. What's the oldest Cirrus in the world? 17 years old?

There can be a pretty limited number of explanations for this...
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I ran a quickie analysis (just searched for "Engine" in the Probable Cause) of Cirrus engine failures. I omitted those that were pure pilot error (fuel exhaustion/starvation), and trimmed a PC or two to eliminate information not strictly related to the engine.

I'll try run a similar analysis on another high-performance type later.

Ron Wanttaja
 

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i am wondering does Cirrus have higher % "engine out" per planes built than other single engine plane manufacturer.
 
wanttaja said:
I ran a quickie analysis (just searched for "Engine" in the Probable Cause) of Cirrus engine failures.
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A good number of these is failure to properly torque through bolts on the engine. Pretty scary when we are now faced with FAA ADs that require arguably unnecessary engine disassembly. It will be interesting to see how many of these engines result in more failures than the AD was supposed to be addressing. It goes from a single cylinder failure to a catastrophic complete engine loss.
 
What would it take to make the Cirrus shoot a zero-zero capable one? Bigger rocket?
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
8 seconds in the older models. I believe 10 or 12 in the newer ones. My min pull altitude is 500 agl. I think the newer ones it is 1000.
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Cirrus is clear in the POH that there is no prescribed minimum altitude for CAPS deployment.

What has been demonstrated is that from 2,000' a successful outcome is virtually guaranteed.

Where the concept of a minimum altitude comes from is from the pre-takeoff briefing and callout. This is for "CAPS Alive" at 500' for early models and 600' for the newer, heavier models. That simply means that those are the lowest altitudes at which CAPS should even be considered - but NOT that there's any guarantee that there will be enough altitude to get stabilized under canopy and avoid injury or death.

Sorry if that seems pedantic, but some are under the impression that at those callout altitudes that the chute will definitely work. It may, or it may not. But this incident is a valuable data point and thankfully the pilot was trained to act quickly, calmly and decisively. Good job!
 
Right. Not in the POH but in the CAPS guidance syllabus provided by Cirrus there are lots of references to those figures.
 
Relevant info from the SR22T POH:

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A buddy of mine had an engine failure in a Cirrus a few years ago. The engine-driven fuel pump failed. Cirrus said it was the first such failure in their records (or at least that's what I seem to recall). When it happened, my buddy turned on the electric fuel pump, but no restart. IIRC, he found out later that the electric fuel pump will not supply enough fuel for the engine to run without the engine-driven pump. This was news to my friend. So much for redundancy. Oh well, it's got a chute :rolleyes:;).

By the way, he DID NOT deploy the parachute. He landed safely in a field with only minor damage to one of the wheelpants. The first question Cirrus asked him was, "why didn't you pull the handle?" In his situation, he had a very good field available, and there were power lines downwind of his position, so he chose to do what we all train to do, fly the airplane.
 
flyingron said:
A good number of these is failure to properly torque through bolts on the engine. Pretty scary when we are now faced with FAA ADs that require arguably unnecessary engine disassembly. It will be interesting to see how many of these engines result in more failures than the AD was supposed to be addressing. It goes from a single cylinder failure to a catastrophic complete engine loss.
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I am actually getting my through bolts checked now.
Had cylinder work done and at 20 hours was supposed to get them examined / adjusted if needed.
Timing is great too. The weather is freaking perfect for flying :(
 
Scott@KTYR said:
i am wondering does Cirrus have higher % "engine out" per planes built than other single engine plane manufacturer.
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In the past, I've run analyses of Cirrus accidents against Cessna 210s, Cessna 172s, and a combined set of Glasair and Lancairs. I haven't run comparisons against fleet size (yet), since the Cirrus is so much newer. When you have a plane that's in production for less 20 years, it's a lot more likely that the great majority of the planes are still actively flying. The FAA re-registration process affects this, but I'm still anticipating that more of the older designs are licensed but inactive. This, of course, would skew the results.

My standard analysis compares a set of accident causes to the TOTAL number of accidents of that type. In the process, I also compute how often accidents are precipitated by power failure (any type, including fuel exhaustion) and mechanical failure.

The Cirrus scores pretty well, in comparison to those three other types:

Percentage of accidents starting with power failure:
Cirrus: 13.0%
Cessna 210: 31.6%
Glasair/Lancairs: 30.4%
Cessna 172: 15.2%

Again, this includes cases of fuel exhaustion and starvation. This can be significant, as only 2.6% of Cirrus accidents involve either, a much lower percentage than the other sets (the Cessna 210 is 13.8%).

EXCLUDING Fuel Exhaustion and starvation:
Cirrus: 10.4%
Cessna 210: 18.1%
Glasair/Lancairs: 25.1%
Cessna 172: 8.8%

Percentage of accidents beginning with mechanical failure:
Cirrus: 16%
Cessna 210: 28.6%
Glasair/Lancair: 23.1%
Cessna 172: 7.2%

The number of Cirrus accidents and Glasair/Lancair accidents is close (231 vs. 247) and some interesting comparisons can be made. The Cirrus has 20 more "Pilot Miscontrol" accidents (118 vs. 98), which is interesting when you consider the belief that the two "hot" homebuilts are more challenging to fly. However, the median total time of the Cirrus pilots is less than half that of the Glasair/Lancair set (727 vs. 1700).

The cases of continued VFR into IFR conditions is almost identical, 11 cases Cirrus, 10 for Glasair/Lancair.

Engine failures blamed on mechanical issues is the same (13), but this does not include cases caused by faulty maintenance or by the builder.

Ron Wanttaja
 
pburger said:
A buddy of mine had an engine failure in a Cirrus a few years ago. The engine-driven fuel pump failed. Cirrus said it was the first such failure in their records (or at least that's what I seem to recall). When it happened, my buddy turned on the electric fuel pump, but no restart. IIRC, he found out later that the electric fuel pump will not supply enough fuel for the engine to run without the engine-driven pump. This was news to my friend. So much for redundancy. Oh well, it's got a chute :rolleyes:;).

By the way, he DID NOT deploy the parachute. He landed safely in a field with only minor damage to one of the wheelpants. The first question Cirrus asked him was, "why didn't you pull the handle?" In his situation, he had a very good field available, and there were power lines downwind of his position, so he chose to do what we all train to do, fly the airplane.
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Interesting.

I'm always curious about stuff like this. Why, for example, do some airplanes call for the electric fuel pump to be "on" for departure, while others (like, apparently, the Cirrus) do not?

In our Pipers and our RV, for example, the electric pump is on for departure, and not turned off until we've exceeded 1000 AGL.
 
My fuel pump (Elec) is on for departure.
I turn it off @ 1k feet though.
 
wanttaja said:
In the past, I've run analyses of Cirrus accidents against Cessna 210s, Cessna 172s, and a combined set of Glasair and Lancairs. I haven't run comparisons against fleet size (yet), since the Cirrus is so much newer.
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I appreciate the comparisons you document. Is there any way to document the number of accidents (total or by cause) per hours flown of various aircraft?
 
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