Originally published at: Watch small plane parachute to safety near Denver after midair crash with second plane | Boing Boing
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Every one of these pilots needs to go buy a lottery ticket right now,"
I don’t understand this. Shouldn’t they avoid buying lottery tickets for a while? All the luck is used up?
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Interesting fact: Centennial airport is the US’s second busiest general aviation airport with over 900 takeoffs and landings each day.
I used to have an office overlooking the runway and would watch touch and go’s all day.
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I’ve always wondered how safe parallel runways are, where they send planes to land side by side on separate runways. In this case, the small plane that parachuted to the ground, overshot the center line between the two runways as made its turn to line up with its runway, thus colliding with the twin engine plane.
Got to say, though, that the rocket propelled parachute technology for small planes does seem pretty useful.
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TIL that airplanes can have parachutes
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Here’s a video of a fully deployment of a Cirrus parachute from 2015 of a guy who was (as I recall) ferrying a plane to Hawaii and he ran out of gas. In the end the Coast Guard vectored a cruise ship to pick him up and they scooped him up.
Airplane turned over in high winds – only had about 30 second to get out –
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The built-in Ballistic Recovery Systems parachutes have always been a selling point of Cirrus aircraft. They’re molded right into the top of the fuselage, and there’s an “in case of emergency” handle in the ceiling of the cabin.
If you pull it, the fuselage is destroyed by the ejection of the chute, but you may get to live through the landing. Really cool to see it save a couple of lives!!
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Ah! Could have also had wind pushing it over too, like driving a weather vane. Never thought about that before, I guess pilots are taught to turn tighter into final so any drift will be accounted for?
In my simming life, I just let the old 172’s tail swing around and then I pull myself back to center.
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I flew in one of those once. The pilot pointed to the handle and said: “DO NOT pull this unless you’re sure I’m dead. If I’m dead, pull the handle.” His big fear was a passenger freaking out in turbulence and deploying the chute.
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Came here to say I too marvel at the effectiveness of parachutes on small planes. What a great innovation. I’ve been watching the development of these things for about a decade now and seeing them in use has been pretty amazing.
I’ll also add, how did the green twin engine plane land? Wow! I mean a giant chunk of the cabin was ripped in half. Crazy.
Edit SP
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Writers for late night TV be like:
Someone take Harrison Ford/Caitlyn Jenner’s pilot license away!
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I flew with him too!
I used to have an office overlooking the runway and would watch touch and go’s all day.
Me too. It seemed like they had at least one incident a month. Usually a plane going off the runway or landing gear failure. About once a year someone seemed to land in my company’s landscape pond.
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The last time two planes hit each other out here, everyone in the planes ended up dead, and my neighbor’s house was burned to the ground after one of the planes crashed into it. This recent event had a much better outcome.
And I’m with @anon33932455 - - once you have used your luck to survive a midair crash, buying a lottery ticket seems the wrong choice. But I also get annoyed at the term 24/7/365, so I guess I sometimes tilt at windmills.
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Wow, what a mess. Here’s the ATC audio if anyone’s interested. MIDAIR COLLISION ON FINAL APPROACH at Denver - Centennial - YouTube
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I’m imagining what would have happened if all the planes on 9/11 had had this feature.
What would you prefer? 24/365? 24/7/52?
I don’t think it is possible for jumbo jets.
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