CAPS Save!

On 7 JAN 2012, Richard McGlaughlin and his daughter were flying their 2004 Cirrus SR22 to the Bahamas, when they lost all oil pressure, completely seizing the engine at 9500’.  Richard declared an emergency with Miami Center and turned directly towards the closest land.  After configuring his aircraft for best glide, and at about 2-miles from Andros Island realized that he wasn’t going to make it.  At around 2300’ he pulled his aircraft parachute (CAPs or Cirrus Airframe Parachute System), which is standard equipment on every Cirrus aircraft.   Both Richard and his daughter survived without injury. 

It’s situations like this that make me happy to be flying a Cirrus!  If it wasn’t for the chute, the outcome most likely wouldn’t have been as good!

http://www.d7publicaffairs.com/go/doc/586/1270987/

http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/2100-full.html#205996

Cirrus vs Corvalis/Columbia

There seems to be much debate over safety concerns for the Cirrus Aircraft. There area couple of bloggers that are out to bad mouth Cirrus and claim that the Cessna Corvalis/Columbia aircraft are far safer and easier to fly. It should also be noted that both bloggers are salesman for Cessna (go figure) and are using fear to try to sell their aircraft. Since Cessna has purchased Columbia, they have since stopped production of the 350 and now only sell the 400TT and at that are having a tough time making it. Cirrus on the other hand is the number one selling GA aircraft in production and is still selling lots of aircraft (even though the economy has been poor!).

One of my COPA members compiled these statistics gathered from a friend's Corvalis/Columbia membership and compared them to the Cirrus. It should be noted though that it is hard to do much weighted analysis based on these numbers because the Corvalis/Columbia is about 1/3 the size of the Cirrus fleet. Pilot Error is comparable in both fleets, however Corvalis/Columbia seemed to have had more mechanical problems. They've also had less problems weather, cruise flight and pilot decision making. Surprisingly they have more problems with landing than the Cirrus fleet, which is unique in that many blogs post just the opposite.

In a survey done last year, Corvalis/Columbia pilots fly 150-160 hours per year. This is similar to the 146.5 hours per year estimated for SR20 and 161.5 hours for SR22 pilots.

CAUSE OF ACCIDENT/INCIDENT