Tom_Waarne
No matter how much fun it may be, every flight is still the full meal deal with all the consequences.
No matter how much fun it may be, every flight is still the full meal deal with all the consequences.
Sorry Russ, but Norfolk is not the closest weather reporting site by a long shot. Both FFA (the accident airport) and MQI (the departure) have AWOS. And CGAS Elizabeth City is much closer to FFA than Norfolk, 28 to 59 miles.
Your comment doesn’t quite make sense as written, but I am going to assume that you are suggesting that the chutes are not so useful as is claimed. However, a bit of Googling has various sources claiming that both Cirrus and the owners’ group recommend a 500’ minimum deployment altitude - about 275’ less than they had available.
Can’t blame the chute.
1 reply
Whatever caused this accident, it was not the chute.
Based on the little amount of information available it sounds like it was a pilot failure to maintain centerline during approach to and possible subsequent rollout from landing. I suspect the Cirrus was innocent.
Way to go hero, you’ve cracked the case. With those kind of sleuthing skills you could be the next Dan Grider.
Looking at the KFFA METAR for the 28th at 2110Z, 8 minutes before the last ADS-B ping on Flight Aware, it was showing winds at 170 @ 6 gusting to 14 kts. Five minutes before that at 2105Z the winds were 160 @ 8 gusting to 14 kts. The crosswind componet for runway 21 would have been about 5 kts gusting to 10.
(EDIT) I also just noticed that in the METAR for 2130Z the winds were reported as 170 @ 8 kts, but variable between 130 and 220.
The winds along the coast in the early evening can be very squirrely, especially the day after a hurricane. They can absolutely catch someone off guard who isn’t aware.
Right on brother. As an Internationally known training facility used to quote in their advertising, “The best safety device in an aircraft is a trained, current, and proficient pilot.”