Video from a US Coast Guard aircraft released on Monday captured the drama of a single-engine airplane and its pilot splashing safely into the Pacific Ocean thanks to a parachute inside its fuselage.
The factory-new Cirrus SR22 was en route to Hawaii on Sunday afternoon on a ferry flight from the San Francisco area when it “ran out of fuel,” the coast guard said in a press release.
Video from the C-130 Hercules rescue plane showed the aircraft deploy its airframe parachute — standard equipment on the five-seat plane — an estimated 1,800m above the sea.
Photo: Reuters
Three and a half minutes later, the Cirrus hit the water with a splash, and the unidentified pilot is seen climbing into a small life raft.
He was picked up about half an hour later by a passing cruise ship, about 407km from the Hawaiian island of Maui.
“The pilot was reported to be in good condition. The plane was last observed partially submerged,” the coast guard said.
The pilot had reported four hours earlier that he had approximately three hours of fuel remaining, and estimated he would have to ditch 370km from Maui.
That gave search and rescue teams valuable time to dispatch the rescue aircraft and identify the Holland America Line cruise ship Veendam, sailing from San Diego, California, to Maui, as a likely rescue vessel.
Flight tracking Web site FlightAware.com said the US-registered aircraft was flying a 3,894km route from Tracy airport near San Francisco to Kahului, on Maui. Tracy is a frequently used departure point for small aircraft on ferry flights from the US mainland via Hawaii to East Asia and Australia.
A Cirrus SR22 can typically fly for 800 nautical miles (1,500km), but for transoceanic journeys it is fitted with extra fuel tanks in the cabin. Cirrus said timely deployment of its Cirrus Airframe Parachute System has saved 104 lives worldwide since the debut of the original SR20 model in the 1990s.
Similar airframe parachutes are available for Cessna 172 and 182 single-engine aircraft, but not as standard equipment. They can also be fitted to homemade airplanes.
When deployed, the parachute will bring a Cirrus down to Earth at a rate of about 527m per minute. Seatbelts with integrated airbags add an extra degree of safety.
The pilot and passenger of another Cirrus SR22 credited the parachute with saving their lives in October after a mid-air collision with a helicopter at the Frederick, Maryland, airport, northwest of Washington. The three people in the Robinson R44 training helicopter died; the Cirrus occupants suffered minor injuries.
Cirrus spokesman Ben Kowalski told Flying magazine on Monday that the manufacturer — in whose name the SR22 was registered with the US Federal Aviation Administration — was in “detail gathering mode” after the Hawaii incident and assisting authorities in their investigation.
“First and foremost, we’re remarkably thankful and happy that everyone is okay, and for the work of the coast guard in the rescue,” he was quoted as saying on Flying’s Web site.
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