Had a Cirrus aircraft crash in the DFW area a couple days ago. 2 survived and 1 fatality. Parachute deployed, but at this time they don't know at what altitude. Witness say the engine sounded like it was dying and restarting.
Butch

Don't know why exactly but that little devil is quickly becoming the most deadly GA airplane in the sky. I think it has more to do with the folks who can afford to buy and fly them than the airplane itself.

Kind of like the Bonanza a good airplane that priced itself to the Dr., Lawyer, A type "can't tell me a darn thing" gotta get there no matter the weather, fly once a month club. Bad combo in a slippery airplane.

I would tease my Doctor about his V tail doctor killer, He is a retired USAF Col. And my Flight Surgeon. Good guy, The problem with the Cirrus is that its a fast bugger, not much room a funky lay out and G-1000. You then put low time type A private pilots in them and well you might see some problems. I think it has nothing to do with any of this, People buy the airplane at about 600K and they tend to fly and if you fly you are exposed to risk. Since they have money they tend to fly and the risk factor goes up. I don't like the things myself, I would fly one if I had to or some one offered me a job flying one. But they don't do anything for me, now an Aviat Husky or a Cub Crafters Top Cub well now that would be a different story.

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can't tell me a darn thing" gotta get there no matter the weather, fly once a month club.

You got that right, this attitude has killed more pilots that about anything.

This crash started at Leesburg airport when the guy went around asking if anyone was IFR rated so they could fly him to Louisa. No one volunteered of course. He said "Well, I 've got Loran, I should be able to get there." and left. Wouldn;t take no for an answer. I was working the line then and when we got word what happened none of us were surprised but we were all very sad for the guy. The pilots he asked and who refused him had major pangs of guilt but given the situation they made the right decision.

http://www.planecrashmap.com/plane/va/N20LA

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Originally posted by surestrike:
Don't know why exactly but that little devil is quickly becoming the most deadly GA airplane in the sky. I think it has more to do with the folks who can afford to buy and fly them than the airplane itself.

Kind of like the Bonanza a good airplane that priced itself to the Dr., Lawyer, A type "can't tell me a darn thing" gotta get there no matter the weather, fly once a month club. Bad combo in a slippery airplane.

Absoutely. We used to call the V-tail Bonanza the "forked tail doctor killer." It was.

I'm not a pilot, but here's a story related to the above topic. In the '70's I was spending some time in float planes up here in Washington and British Columbia. My usual pilot was a friend who was a superb pilot and fine instructor, so I took a few lessons. His sister was married to a doctor and they lived in California. They flew to Seattle in his plane. My friend took them to the airport for departure and noticed a few drops of oil under the nose. Despite his protestations, they took off.

My friend's response was to buy a $10,000 life insurance policy on the doc and mail him a copy. Yes, he did have an insurable interest in the guy.

My pilot friend commented one day that Type A folks made dangerous pilots.

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My pilot friend commented one day that Type A folks made dangerous pilots.

I don't agree with that assertion. A person can be a supposed "Type A' and still have the ability to exercise good judgement.

Personality "type" classifications have long since fallen out of favor in psychological parlance. Of course, I personally consider most psychiatrists to be shills for Big Pharma, but that is another story.

Fighter pilots are known for their aggression and they often kill themselves, but they kill the enemy more often than not instead. So aggressiveness in a pilot can be a positive factor.

I have always been a hard charger, but I also exercised restraint in aviation affairs and carefully calculated any risks, even though I thrive on high risk endeavors. It worked. I made it to retirement and often wish I had not.

Often those who kill themselves out of carelessness in aviation are simply too arrogant to listen to good advice.

Its not the airplane, its the low time well healed private pilots that buy them. You throw in the G-1000 avionics package and you are bound to have some problems. I never needed a parachute for the few engine failures that I had over the last 36 years of flying professionally. Its not the kind of airplane one should buy for a first airplane, I sure would not do so, and I have plenty of flight time in high performance single engine airplanes. A engine failure should not lead to killing yourself and every one on board, if you know how to fly and just fly the airplane right down to the ground, my guess a lot of this is stall/spin at low alt. Well getting into a spin at low altitudes is going to kill you no matter how many hours you have in the logbook or how many years you been flying. Robinson Helicopters have a problem too, low time pilots in a very very twitchy helicopter. They changed the training some for them, but guys still wreck a lot of them every year. And Garmin just came out with the G-2000 its touch screen going to be interesting to see how the transition is going to go.

Jetdrvr

I think you are missing more of the point than you are getting on this discussion.

Easy to miss what is being said because of what is being said, but I would bet a lot of civilian pilots, their friends and families die for it.

Gethomeitis is likely a big crash factor also.