More (or mandatory) parachutes will save lives....too many fatalities

In the chance that BRS when bankrupt I would not want to have a $6k, $8k, $10 or $15k piece of equipment that can only be serviced or replaced by them.

I'm not even crazy about owning airplanes that require 100LL fuel which is hated by EPA and all the other enviros
 
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To the original question, as I reflect on the friends and acquaintances I've lost to airplane accidents since I've been flying I can't think of a single one that would have survived had they had an airframe parachute.
 
I think the chute is highly over rated and you are overestimating the benefits by a significant margin without any real empirical data to back it up. It's a very pricey piece of equipment that in my opinion has a very limited potential, there are only a small number of scenarios where I think it's deployment would be appropriate or necessary. I think that viewing it as a get out of jail free card might actually be detrimental leading some into situations they might otherwise not have let themselves into but when you've got twenty K invested in something you want to make yourself feel that you're getting something out of it.
 
More parachutes or more emergency landing strips? Size of GA Fleet * $30K = Verses going and bulldozing a bunch of emergency landing strips so one is always close.
 
Re: More parachutes will save lives....too many fatalities

I understand this might be controversial but I feel compelled to say my piece. I read the NTSB reports constantly, along with any plane crashes that register on google. Seems like pilots are dying pretty much daily. Lately I have seen quite a few plane crashes where the pilot just completely fails to land the plane safely for whatever reason. Looking over the many accidents, I am certain pulling a parachute quickly would have resulted in a much better outcome for a lot of these pilots.

I hear pilots quick to blame other dead pilots for their incompetence (and it is often valid and should be discussed), but the reality is that pilot could be you. Plenty of these fatalities are by experienced and competent pilots. Even some from this board who have tragically passed. Many ended up in a stall to spin after losing power, often from a decently high elevation. Others ended up smashing into trees or houses at a decent velocity. It appears even well trained pilots misjudge a steep bank angle with no power and stall when it is too late. Even some landings that look ok resulted in disastrous results due to flipping of the aircraft or a harsh landing with an immediate fire on contact. One pilot called ATC and said they had a nice field and they would make the landing. Something happened, they flipped and the plane blew up on what should have been a normal field landing.

And what about engine failure on a dark night or over rough terrain? What about being disoriented in IFR? What if you are caught in rough weather? Would you rather try to make an emergency landing or pull the chute?


Going back and looking at a lot of these accidents, if the pilot had pulled a parachute when things went south I think many of these people would have walked away. The parachutes have a remarkable safety record even when pulled from relatively low altitudes, depending on what you are flying.


Some of you will disagree and say a parachute causes people to act with less responsibility but I fly in many planes with chutes and I have never seen evidence of this. Is the parachute the end all be all of safety? Absolutely not, nothing beats good judgment and piloting skills. But I am starting to think pulling a parachute early would save a lot more lives if it was an option.

Did you notice while reading the stats that most accidents occur during the takeoff or landing phases where parachutes are useless?

They're also stupidly expensive - and heavy - especially as retrofits.

We've hashed parachutes to death on this board. Do a search.

I'm so sick of people turning with longing eyes to the government to save them from themselves or from nothing at all. If you want a chute, by all means, get one. But please stop trying to save me. You don't know me and I don't want your "help".
 
I believe the parachute saves lives and they should make it a less expensive option for safety on all airplanes, it would do well. Just maintenance alone on the Cirrus rocket is $15,000 every 10 years.

The more you make "Anything" mandatory the more freedom you lose. Some people like that, but that is for another post!
 
I think the biggest hurdle to pilots with a chute is the decision to pull it. So, lets look at three recent losses and I'll decide if it would have done any good to have a chute or not.

Comanche on take off, clear day, within weight limits, at ~500 power loss. Pilot attempted return to field, stall/spin crash(presumed, no final yet). Would the pilot in this case with a BRS attempted a RTB? Would they have sacrificed the plane and pulled the chute? If the decision was made at ~350', would it have saved the plane? This one I only give a 40% chance. Mostly because of the decision/delay in pulling the handle. There's always that voice that says 'I can fix this, I can, I can, I can, oh - I can't.' By that time, the chute might as well be a box of rocks.

Next, RV-10 with 5 people at night, low level(600-2900'), poor weather, non-pilot at controls, possible showing off, possible disorientation. This one I give an 70-80% chance. Mainly because that 'oh spit' moment could be caught in time, and if - again, if the guy makes the decision in time.

Last, C-310 in mountains, daylight, high load, high alt, mountain flying, min training, decent weather. I give this one about 20% chance of a save with a BRS. Mainly this once gets such a low rating because of the attitude displayed by the pilot(s). I would give it a higher rating on a save, but something tells me these guys either couldn't or wouldn't pull the handle until the last microsecond thus eliminating the value of an early decision.

So, my take is that you need to follow the learning of Cirrus and decide to pull, and quit trying to save the tin or ticket, and just get it over with early. All three of these could be a high percentage if the decision to pull was made in time, but no one wants to admit that they got themselves in far beyond their capability to recover. Key thing to me is not the BRS is technologically available but that it will be used when needed, and not after.
 
I believe the parachute saves lives and they should make it a less expensive option for safety on all airplanes, it would do well. Just maintenance alone on the Cirrus rocket is $15,000 every 10 years.

And who is this "they should make it" you speak of??
 
Calm down boys. The Cirrus airframe chute is not a safety device, it is a sales device. And a damn good one at that. How many wives insist on Cirrus?:wink2:
The Peltzman effect is real, and we are going to go in eventually, chute or not.
 
There was a generation that railed against things like seat belts and airbags in cars. There always will be because people have a confirmation bias - "I managed to survive without it and therefore it's not necessary!"

The problem of course with airframe parachutes is the cost. If adoption rates go up and more manufacturers see the consumer demand then the price will come down. GA airplane sales is not exactly a booming market though so it's not going to happen any time soon (new airplanes without BRS are already prohibitively expensive for most people).

Sadly there still are a lot of people who would refuse to use such technology because they interpret safety devices as being somehow un-macho. Just look at the ridiculousness people bring out when Cirrus is discussed. People have their own tolerance for risk, though, so there's not much you can do. It sure is sad when someone's entire family burns up in a smoldering pile of ash when they didn't need to, though. The passengers probably didn't assume the same level of risk as the pilot.
 
There was a generation that railed against things like seat belts and airbags in cars. There always will be because people have a confirmation bias - "I managed to survive without it and therefore it's not necessary!"
While it is true that many did resist vehicle safety improvements, I honestly don't think you can equate the two and cost is the biggest reason.
 
While it is true that many did resist vehicle safety improvements, I honestly don't think you can equate the two and cost is the biggest reason.

True, but that's why I addressed cost as well in the post. However, it's important to note the distinction between saying "I don't have a BRS because I can't afford it" and "I don't have a BRS because it's for sissy pilots that can't put a plane down wherever they need to".
 
True, but that's why I addressed cost as well in the post. However, it's important to note the distinction between saying "I don't have a BRS because I can't afford it" and "I don't have a BRS because it's for sissy pilots that can't put a plane down wherever they need to".
Valid point. Not all BRS resistance is the same.
 
I'm surprised there are so many folks against chutes in here. If a 5-seater Cirrus were as affordable as a comparable twin, I'd be all over it, primarily because of the safety factor. You can't control everything up there, and I'm just not comfortable flying my wife and kids with only one engine and no other options. The chute provides that (necessary, for my comfort level) last option.

Now, if it's just me? One engine & no chute - no problem at all. Perhaps that's the difference here among the respondents - the responsibility ratchets up considerably when passengers get involved.
 
My being against chutes is because, as I already said, they are highly over rated and hyped to the point of ridiculousness.

For instance you'll find the mentality of "over the mountains? Pull the chute - no brainier". Well I don't know what kinds of mountains these guys fly over but I cringe over the thought of coming down as a passenger under a parachute with no control whatsoever onto thousand foot cliffs, forty degree rock strewn slopes and vertical canyon walls. All while looking at a perfectly good open gravel bar down on the riverbed that you can't get to on account of your chute now being the sole determinant of where you end up.

Same goes for trees or water. Are you going down in that lake 100 yards from shore or two and a half miles? If you go into trees the upper branches absorb the forward motion of the aircraft and it falls 60 or 70 feet through them to the ground - same as it does after hitting tree tops under a chute. :dunno:
 
My being against chutes is because, as I already said, they are highly over rated and hyped to the point of ridiculousness.

For instance you'll find the mentality of "over the mountains? Pull the chute - no brainier". Well I don't know what kinds of mountains these guys fly over but I cringe over the thought of coming down as a passenger under a parachute with no control whatsoever onto thousand foot cliffs, forty degree rock strewn slopes and vertical canyon walls. All while looking at a perfectly good open gravel bar down on the riverbed that you can't get to on account of your chute now being the sole determinant of where you end up.

Same goes for trees or water. Are you going down in that lake 100 yards from shore or two and a half miles? If you go into trees the upper branches absorb the forward motion of the aircraft and it falls 60 or 70 feet through them to the ground - same as it does after hitting tree tops under a chute. :dunno:

You are aware that it doesn't pull itself right?
You have the option to continue flying in that situation.

Now lets say you have a birdstrike in that same area and your eyes are full of feathers and bird shrapnel...
 
I don't want to own a cirrus and I don't want a parachute....

I like my Mooney 231 like it is!
 
I've seen some analogies to auto accidents, but we must remember there are two fundamental differences between car and plane accidents.

First, if you have a car accident, there's a good chance that it was not due to something you did or the equipment you're driving. Because of that, we're a bit more accepting of safety upgrades to our cars...because it's not a reflection on our own capabilities.

The vast majority of aircraft accidents are due to flaws in our own equipment, in our own judgment, or our own abilities. It's common enough for us to dismiss a particular accident because, "I wouldn't do make that mistake." So we tend to react negatively when someone says that we need to give up capability or dollars because of a mistake that we, ourselves, believe we'll never make.

In reality, such a change *might* save some of our lives. But it's a hard sell. Like someone posted a bit ago, the Cirrus parachute probably sells the airplanes to the non-pilots... spouses, or those just starting out that don't have any experience to claim confidence in skills.

The second difference between car and plane accidents is that, once the accident has started, the actions of the driver don't make much difference to life and death. Once you've been T-boned, you're along for the ride.

Yes, in some cases you can improve your lot with post-impact maneuvering, but for the most part, it's all going to be a big noisy whirl that you can't affect much and will be over in seconds. If you just sit there, it'll soon slide to a halt, and NOT doing anything won't affect chance of survival that much. Just step out when the noise ends.

Completely different in an airplane, of course. In most cases, to NOT act is to die. You need to perform the deadstick landing; you need to break the stall and recover, you need to regain attitude control.

So... compared to auto drivers, pilots are trained to fight. We talk about saving the plane, but in reality, we're saving OURSELVES. Save the plane, and the pilot and passengers usually come out OK, too.

With 110 years of tradition behind us, it's alien to consider circumstances where the pilot yields control early in an accident sequence. Hence the pushback...against seat belts in the early days (until pilots like Harriet Quimby got tossed out in turbulence), or against parachute (until WWI pilots were stuck in burning airplanes), or against ejection seats. And against whole-airplane parachutes, now.

I am for whole-airplane parachutes...but feel that there are limited circumstances in which it would be needed, and of course, the pilot has to be willing to use it in those circumstances. But as Cirrus has proven, they *can* be safely used.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Y...Now lets say you have a birdstrike in that same area and your eyes are full of feathers and bird shrapnel...

Yes, any sort of mid-air is most likely a good case for a BRS and it's up to you if it's worth $20k to insure yourself on the grounds that it's likely to happen. What I'm saying is you've paid that much to maybe save yourself in one or two possible scenarios but all the other boogeymen are still out there lurking and the chute can't help you with any of them.
 
I'm on my second Cirrus and personally have no intention of flying a piston single without a chute but I would vehemently oppose the notion of forcing people to have a parachute system. People should be able to choose whatever they want. I believe the chute is a worthwhile safety improvement and am happy to make the economic and weight tradeoff that having a BRS system brings but I completely respect others' choices to do differently.
 
Ron Wanttaja that was a great post.

My question to everyone is, are you as good a pilot as you think you are? Do you not think the pilots dying every week thought they were pretty good? It is easy to say "a well trained pilot" will be ok in these situations and "only passengers use parachutes", but the fact of the matter is a lot of pilots die because these aren't always easy scenarios to navigate.

I do see some delusion and a cavalier attitude from some pilots who think they are much better than they are. They think "well it happened to that guy but that's why I am well trained". The irony is the guy who just burned alive was saying the same thing a week ago.

Instead of playing hero over some bad landing options, a quick pull of the chute would have saved a lot of these guys and family members from a fiery death. Engine out and you turn a bit too much you drop straight out of the sky. But that turn looks so tempting when you are barreling towards a building, trees, or a power line. If you land and your plane tumbles or clips an obstruction, it can blow up in an instant.

Again, I'm not saying a parachute is the ultimate in safety. My main point is, it should be used more if it is available and if it is practical for you to add as an option, then it is worth considering.

Possible scenarios:

• Single-engine night operations....will you make that landing on a dark night?
• Pilot incapacitation
• Stall/spin on approach
• Spatial disorientation or disorientation in IFR resulting in spin
• Structural failure
• Loss of control/icing (component failure, icing induced or pilot error)
• Engine out over hostile terrain
• Engine out after takeoff
• Mid air collision
 
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If a chute is there and I am in a less than ideal situation (i.e., low option, high risk) then yes, I want one. Why not? If everyone that died could have a do-over, I am guessing they would too...whether the chute would work or not in that situation, at least it's another chance.

BUT, we live in a world of compromise. People value money and time and life in different proportions (and have differing amounts of each).

I'm new to this board and come here for entertainment and some education. I like this thread. It started what, today and it's already 5 pages long?! Fun stuff. No different than bench racing...

So here is my personal dilemma. I would probably have a hard time admiting defeat. Pull the chute? Only as a last resort and that last resort "lightbulb in my head" probably would not go on until below 2000 ft. Maybe if I was in the mountains or a metroplex it would be easy to flush the chute, but I'm in the Midwest.

If any of you have been sea-sick or ate/drank too much, have you "pulled the trigger"? I could never get myself to do so, even though the inevitable was inevitable, lol. Maybe be the chute would be the same thing to me. Never give up, lol!

Rock on, this is at least as good as Airplane Repo :)
 
I'd like to have an airframe chute. I'd also like to have a pair of turbine engines and a pro-pilot on my payroll sitting next to me. None of those things make the grade for my personal cost-benefit analysis for air travel.
 
I think there may be an element of delusion in this; GA aircraft, light twin and smaller, are not "safe" - too much surface area for thier mass, not at all manuverable in the vertical plane, and not very G tolerant. We fly in the weather, vice above it, in aircraft with little redundancy. We can mitigate to a degree, but if safety is your goal, GA isn't your arena.

The stats are silly, mostly without context, in terms of rate; if we all stopped making mistakes, then the Feds (and other entities needing to justify thier existence) would be "alarmed" at the up-tick in "the rising percentage of maintenance and mechanically related crashes".

A person can get killed in GA, and that's probably a more likely outcome than when driving a car, or boating, and maybe sky diving. Does a chute mitigate much of the risk? Probably not enough to be statistical significant. It seems, subjectively, to be an expensive security blanket with marginal utility.

Flying light aircraft has inherent and significant risks. . .four point harnesses, chutes, airbags, 406 ELTS, etc., likely reduce the risks just a small amount - like buying a Volvo; it is, very slightly, safer. But not by all that much. If you have the means and will, sure buy all the safety stuff you care to - but be cognizant that your likely buying very, very small and incremental improvements in your "safety".
 
I'll have to take your word for it. Mine is Gentex with a new Gibson and Barnes internals and I have no complaints about the weight, fit or noise level. I guess I have a hard time seeing what more I'd get for an extra grand.

I don't fly budget airplanes either.

I hope your experience with Gibson and Barnes plays out better than mine. At ~200 hours of use my helmet started having electrical issues. Additionally the helmet never fit properly. I paid for their custom fit option and it was too small. After several itinerations of adding and removing padding per their instructions it was as managble but never comfortable. After about 4 hours it was bad enough I would have to take it off and wear a headset. I had Ron at Merrit apparel fit me for a gallet lh250 with nvg mount, anr and custom wiring for the jacks so I can move between fixed wing and helo jacks. Best money I have ever spent.

Personally I'll never spend money at g&b again.
 
455 Bravo I am glad you are entertained! A few crusty characters came out of the woodwork but the thread has overall been interesting at least for me. Some really good comments from both sides.

Now about those mandatory professional co-pilots.........
 
The most interesting discussion on this thread is the sidebar helmet talk.
 
I think there may be an element of delusion in this; GA aircraft, light twin and smaller, are not "safe" - too much surface area for thier mass, not at all manuverable in the vertical plane, and not very G tolerant. We fly in the weather, vice above it, in aircraft with little redundancy. We can mitigate to a degree, but if safety is your goal, GA isn't your arena.

The stats are silly, mostly without context, in terms of rate; if we all stopped making mistakes, then the Feds (and other entities needing to justify thier existence) would be "alarmed" at the up-tick in "the rising percentage of maintenance and mechanically related crashes".

A person can get killed in GA, and that's probably a more likely outcome than when driving a car, or boating, and maybe sky diving. Does a chute mitigate much of the risk? Probably not enough to be statistical significant. It seems, subjectively, to be an expensive security blanket with marginal utility.

Flying light aircraft has inherent and significant risks. . .four point harnesses, chutes, airbags, 406 ELTS, etc., likely reduce the risks just a small amount - like buying a Volvo; it is, very slightly, safer. But not by all that much. If you have the means and will, sure buy all the safety stuff you care to - but be cognizant that your likely buying very, very small and incremental improvements in your "safety".
I'd guess you don't fly much with all that negativity. I use my non-g-tolerant, un-maneuverable death trap to make nearly-weekly trips across 3 states between our home and farm. I find it to be comfortable, reliable, safe transportation that enables us to live in a place that offers better employment opportunities while staying close (in time, not in miles) to family and land.
 
If I'm operating well and the skywagon is too I can't see how on earth it's safer to slog eleven hours by car to our farm instead of flying three hours.

Mandatory chutes for a plane like mine is like putting one on a glider. If I can't make it down in a complete airplane when the mill quits, I don't think a chute is going to necessarily save the day.

Where it would be nice is if you inadvertently tear a wing off somehow, now then it would be nice to have. :redface:
 
Just FYI I believe the Germans require UL airplanes to have whole plane parachutes.
 
But given the choice I absolutely do prefer the parachute as an option, especially during night flight or over terrain not suitable for off field landing.


We could discuss how to almost remove the problem of night flight completely.

How many people here plan flights at night at an altitude where they're in glide range of the airports along the route about 80% or more of the time aloft?

I suspect when we went VOR to VOR and many were on airports, we indirectly got a small benefit from that without realizing it much. We were at least part of the time, navigating from airport to airport at night.

Now that we're children of the magenta line, how many force the line to be crooked to stay within gliding distance of an airport when possible, by only adding a small non-direct dogleg? Obviously it's not possible to make it a 100% coverage thing, but does anyone even try anymore?

I've gotten lazy/complacent about it, frankly.

But... I used to go do a lot of night XC just due to work schedule and I used to plan the route more airport to airport and a higher altitude calculated to give reasonable glide ratio (barring insane winds aloft - which made it hard to go upwind to get there if the planning assumption was a circle radius).

I'll still fly higher in general at night. Couple thousand more feet is time in the bank to decide on a plan if the fan quits. May or may not be useful if I went straight between the two endpoints on the map.

Ye Olde Victor Airways had a little benefit there, even if they weren't the direct route. Many were, after all, based on the old lighted airway system routes between airports long long ago...
 
Planes don't kill people. People kill people.


But you can make planes safer by following the four rules!

1. Airplanes are always loaded.
2. Never point the aircraft at anything you don't intend to destroy.
3. Keep your hands off the controls until you've aimed the airplane at your destination airport.
4. Be sure you're aimed at the right airport and if you overrun it that you won't hit anything beyond it.

;)
 
But you can make planes safer by following the four rules!

1. Airplanes are always loaded.
2. Never point the aircraft at anything you don't intend to destroy.
3. Keep your hands off the controls until you've aimed the airplane at your destination airport.
4. Be sure you're aimed at the right airport and if you overrun it that you won't hit anything beyond it.

;)

Now that is funny
 
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