Crash landing averted with plane’s parachute
Pair spared serious injury as descent slowed
The pilot of the small single-engine aircraft knew something was wrong late Tuesday morning soon after he and his passenger lifted off from the runway at Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Victor Sanchez, 56, reported having major engine problems with the private airplane, Texas Department of Public Safety officials said.
But instead of crashing into the quiet suburban northwest Harris County neighborhood below, a safety device unique to the company that built the airplane allowed it to safely touch down into a cul-de-sac along Laurel Bank Way near Laurel Arbor with the pilot and passenger walking away with only minor scratches.
The Cirrus SR-22 is a plane with its own parachute.
Texas DPS Trooper Stephen Woodard said he heard someone mention “parachutes” soon after word of the catastrophic engine failure went over the radio.
“I asked, ‘Did they parachute out of the plane?’ They said, ‘No. The parachute was connected to the plane,’” Woodard later recalled. “That’s out of the norm for what we usually deal with.”
The plane was heading to Austin when the engine gave out. Woodard said the passenger, 30-year-old Matthew Julien, took over the controls immediately after the engine problem was detected.
One of the men pulled a red handle on the cockpit ceiling that triggered the trademarked Cirrus Airframe Parachute System.
Not counting Tuesday’s incident, company officials said parachutes have deployed 52 times with 105 people surviving. It isn’t certain what would have happened if the pilot did not initiate the parachute, but the system is designed to provide a crucial extra layer of safety.
While the safety device may not be well known outside the aviation community, last month Cirrus delivered its 6,000th airplane since it began operations in 1999.
“A rocket is ignited. It deploys from the aircraft and pulls out the parachute,” said Ben Kowalski, vice president of marketing for Duluth, Minn.-based Cirrus Aircraft.
The force of the rocket also releases straps once connected to the fuselage that within seconds become part of the harness for the quickly-unfurling parachute.
“The parachute is designed to return the aircraft back to the ground safely,” Kowalski said.
A specialized landing gear, a roll cage and energy-absorbing seats in the cockpit also help ensure safety for the pilot and passengers, officials said.
“Every aircraft that we’ve built from day one has included a parachute as standard equipment,” Kowalski said. “The company was literally founded on the principles of safety in aviation.”
Kowalski said the system has worked 100 percent of the time when it is deployed within the necessary parameters of at least 500 feet above the ground and flying about 130 knots.
Last year, the two brothers who founded the company, Alan and Dale Klapmeier, were inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in no small part because of their pioneering work with parachute systems for private aircraft.
“Our goal is to help people get the safest possible aircraft they can. We believe that having a parachute is a key part of that,” Kowalski said. “This is one of the reasons people gravitate to our aircraft because of that added level of safety.”
Trooper Woodard said Sanchez and Julien were treated at the scene for minor scratches and said they didn’t require any further medical attention.
Neither man could be reached for comment later Tuesday.
Although airplanes with their own parachutes are something new to him, Woodard said he thinks it’s an idea whose time has come.
“Any feature that’s added to make the landing safe, I’m all for it,” he said. “If it’s a safety feature, why not?”
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident. They classified it as an accident in part because merely triggering the parachute causes “significant damage” to the aircraft as the straps rip free of the fuselage to support the weight.
According to FAA records, the airplane is owned by a company in Humble that could not be reached for comment.