One of the latest equipment introduced in light aircrafts is the ballistic parachute. The principle is quite simple: when everything else fails, deploy the chute and wait for the impact with the planet. Cirrus has been amongst the first manufacturers offering it, but it will also be an option on the Cessna Skycatcher and the DA50.

I never flew with a parachute-equipped plane, so this post is aimed at sharing some views, and if you have experience with this kind of equipment, please say more in comments.

At first, it works !
Whatever your opinion is about ballistic parachute recovery systems, it already saved a few dozen lives, and this makes it worth. One can certainly argue endlessly about why the pilots who used it found themselves is such a bad situation, and how they could have avoided it. But the bottom line is: the chute saved their lives.

In cases of engine failure or bird strike, or even some inadvertent spins at sufficient altitude, the parachute is doing fine. Given the high efficient of the Cirrus planes design, recovering from a spin is not easy, but the parachute will do.

Sometimes, it won’t work
There are a couple of pilot-killer situations in which the chute won’t help, because there is not enough time for the pilot to react and deploy the parachute:

• Stall on final turn
• Stall on go-arround
• Pilot going below minimums in IMC
• Controlled Flight Into Terrain at night or IMC

These are amongst the more frequent causes of accidents. Airframe or controls damage do exist, but they are extremely seldom, and as long as the main part of the airframe is intact, the parachute will allow for a smooth descent.

Consequences of deployment
Deploying the parachute will damage the airframe. In the Cirrus, it is stored after the cabin, together with a rocket used for the deployment. When the rocket is fired, it pulls the parachute out, through the fuselage. Even if the subsequent landing is perfectly fine, the aircraft will need a major airframe overhaul.

The second consequence of using the parachute is a definitive loss of control. If you have to manage an emergency landing after an engine failure over hostile terrain, do you prefer to make a controlled glide wherever you can, or just land randomly using the parachute ? Not an easy decision.

Ditching is certainly much better with the parachute than gliding down, because it removes the risk of flipping the plane.

How to decide
Because of the important consequences, deciding to use the parachute is not an easy thing. Is the situation really deseperated ? To make the decision easier, the decision should be made before the flight. Exactly like checklists, the course of action must be clearly defined for each problem one can think of, so when the situation becomes real, there is no need to develop a new procedure.

Hesitation in a mid-level engine failure with oil obstructing the windshield does not leaves a lot of time for making the correct decision.

Not an absolute protection
The parachute is a good additional security system, but it shall not have any influence on the decision of starting a flight or not. Would you really take-off with the idea that if you had no parachute you would not ?

Anyway, if you end up in a thunderstorm, or have to cope with windshears on final, the system will be of no help at all. So the pilots of parachute equipped planes must make sure their possible macho attitude is not reinforced by the existence of the parachute.

Side-effects
The presence of the rocket requires special precaution when rescuing a parachute equipped plane. Members of the rescuse team, which can be specially trained for aviation rescue or not, can get seriously hurt if the rocket starts while the team try to access the wreck.

A positive evolution
Even if I never flew nor train for a parachute equipped plane, I’m convinced that this system makes flying safer, even if the system shall normally not be used if everything goes fine. This is just as TCAS (the airborne avoidance system). If ATC and pilots are doing their job correctly, TCAS shall never get in action. However this system saved lifes, and will continue. Because unexpected things can occur.

If you are lucky enough to fly a parachute equipped plane, I would be happy to hear you feed-back.

Links
Cirrus – SR22 page, click on CAPS for more information

BRS – The company producing the parachute built in Cirrus

NTSB – Information about the risk of rockets for rescue teams

NTSB – Report about a loss of situation awareness because of pitot tube icing in IMC. When the terrain warning system activated, the pilot deployed the parachute.