Cirrus' "Failing Instruments In Rapid Succession"

"Marco Leon" mleon(at)optonline.net wrote in message
...
Sure the chute worked as advertised. Great.

What irks me is how and why the aircraft experienced all these instrument
failures one right after another.

The man flew into IMC at 400 feet (I believe he was VFR and had no
instrument rating) and probably became disoriented. His instruments did not
fail. He did.

"C J Campbell" wrote in
:


"Marco Leon" mleon(at)optonline.net wrote in message
...
Sure the chute worked as advertised. Great.

What irks me is how and why the aircraft experienced all these
instrument failures one right after another.

The man flew into IMC at 400 feet (I believe he was VFR and had no
instrument rating) and probably became disoriented. His instruments
did not fail. He did.




************************************************** ***********************
*******
** Report created 4/15/2004 Record 7
**
************************************************** ***********************
*******

IDENTIFICATION
Regis#: 916LJ Make/Model: SR22 Description: SR-22
Date: 04/10/2004 Time: 1356

Event Type: Accident Highest Injury: None Mid Air: N Missing:
N
Damage: Substantial

LOCATION
City: FORT LAUDERDALE State: FL Country: US

DESCRIPTION
ACFT CRASHED UNDER UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES 3 MILES NORTHWEST OF FORT
LAUDERDALE EXECUTIVE AIRPORT, FORT LAUDERDALE, FL

INJURY DATA Total Fatal: 0
# Crew: 1 Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0
Unk:
# Pass: 0 Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0
Unk:
# Grnd: Fat: 0 Ser: 0 Min: 0
Unk:

WEATHER: FXE 1353 UTX METAR 27004KT 2.5SM BR OVC006 24/22 A2991



OTHER DATA
Activity: Unknown Phase: Unknown Operation: General Aviation

Departed: FORT LAUDERDALE, FL Dep Date: 04/10/2004 Dep. Time:
1354
Destination: WEST PALM BEACH, FL Flt Plan: IFR Wx
Briefing: U
Last Radio Cont: APRX 5NM W OF FWE
Last Clearance: CONTRACT FXE TWR

FAA FSDO: FT LAUDERDALE, FL (SO17) Entry date: 04/12/2004

C J Campbell ) wrote:

"Marco Leon" mleon(at)optonline.net wrote in message
...
Sure the chute worked as advertised. Great.

What irks me is how and why the aircraft experienced all these instrument
failures one right after another.

The man flew into IMC at 400 feet (I believe he was VFR and had no
instrument rating) and probably became disoriented. His instruments
did not fail. He did.

CJ, your conclusion does not appear to be the case, as the pilot is
instrument rated.

An interview with the pilot suggests that poor avionics maintenance may
have been the cause. However, flying into low IMC immediately after the
aircraft returned from maintenance may have been a bad decision.

From Aeronews 4/12 news (http://makeashorterlink.com/?T17252808)

--------------- start quote -------------------------------

ANN Exclusive: Cirrus SR22 BRS Survivor Describes Parachute Deployment
Mon, 12 Apr '04

Saturday should have been a good day for Jeff Ippoliti. And, ultimately,
we'd have to suggest that it was. Despite low scud and low visibility,
he was very comfortable with his SR22, an IFR-equipped aircraft that
he'd logged nearly 600 hours in, and one he'd come to depend on for an
unparalleled degree of freedom in getting where he wanted to go... swiftly.

A founding member of the highly regarded Cirrus Owner's and Pilot's
Association, Jeff had been flying a Cirrus Design SR22, Serial Number
80, for several years and simply wouldn't think of owning anything else.
He loved the speed, the looks, and the safety features and he'd gotten
quite comfortable with his personal bird, N916LJ.

He started the morning picking up his airplane at the local service
center, where he'd had it worked on, in order to deal with "some
electrical (and other) issues."

The shop assured him he was good to go, and after his usual preflight
and prep, Jeff launched out of Ft. Lauderdale Exec (FXE) enroute to Palm
Beach International, a short hop up the road. Weather was not all that
good. Broken bases at 400 feet and IFR visibility meant that much of the
trip would be conducted under IFR, though the scud reportedly had a
number of "occasionally broken" layers up to, and through, 6000 feet.

Ippoliti launched IFR, from FXE, and encountered "heavy IMC" shortly
after leaving the ground. Settling into this normal scan and IFR flying
patterns for the short trip up the coast, Jeff went into the soup at
only 400 feet AGL and continued the SR22's robust climb, now approved to
proceed to 2000 feet, as he switched over from tower freq's to the local
center.

From there, a pleasant effort requiring professional instrument flying
skills started tasking him in ways he had hoped to avoid. "Minutes after
departure, I started experiencing instrument failures, one after
another. No warning. No smoke. No clues. Just gauges going out one after
another." As the first gauge failed, Jeff told Center he wanted to turn
back. Center immediately gave him vectors for the return, but thereafter
the perceived succession of failures made the turn-around seem fairly iffy.

Ippoliti was stunned. Not only were gauges failing, but they were
failing in systems that didn't appear to be related. In a matter of
seconds, just hundreds of feet from the ground and untold obstacles
obscured by IMC, he really didn't know what to trust. This couldn't be
good.

With an unknown number of hazards looming, he informed ATC that he was
clearly in trouble. And after some initial hope of heading back, the
SR22 pilot realized that turning back to the airport was something he
wasn't sure he could do with his gauges continuing to fail in "rapid
succession."

"I told center I couldn't turn back... that I was going to pull the
chute." Jeff then told ANN that one of the few responses he remembered
from that moment on was center responding, "you're going to pull what?"

From there, Ippoliti's activities were quick and assured. "I'd thought
about this... but I never expected to have to do it." Jeff pulled the
power back, killed the engine and reached up for the BRS CAPS handle...
and pulled. Despite all his trepidation, Jeff noted that the pull went
well, "No problem with that, it pulled easily."

BANG!

The chute OPENED. Ippoliti then described feeling a little 'G' as the
plane slowed, swung around a bit, and then things calmed down remarkably
fast. "From there it was almost a non-event. The ELT went off right away
and prevented me from understanding Center because it was so loud, and
the pilot door came off as the chute fired... but the ride down lasted
only seconds as I came down on some trees and just... stopped."

Ippoliti was alive and had landed in a local park. The aircraft was not
only intact, but surprisingly suffered limited damage... "a lot less
than what might have been," he noted. He doesn't have much to say about
the landing impact, as the trees apparently absorbed most of the energy,
and turned history's third emergency CAPS landing into a "relative
non-event."

People who watched the plane land came immediately to the site and
Ippoliti soon found himself in the role of dutiful reporter (and
unwanted center of attention) to the numerous Law Enforcement, FAA and
other government agencies who converged on the scene. "FAA was
terrific," he said, and the support he got from Cirrus Design, shortly
thereafter (including a ride home), "was fantastic."

Jeff graciously called ANN less than 24 hours after his ordeal... a time
when there had to be a lot of things on his mind, though one thing
seemed certain. When asked if he was going to get another plane, he
answered quickly, "ABSOLUTELY... another Cirrus. I wouldn't fly anything
else."

As Ippoliti becomes the third pilot to experience what all Cirrus flyers
prepare for (and hope never to use), he joins the "informed unanimity"
that has developed from each of the survivors... a strong belief in a
safety system that was once looked down-upon by much of the rest of the
GA industry.. an industry who is now beginning to understand that this
technology has saved six lives so far and will, undoubtedly, keep doing
so far into the future.

Observers at the scene tell ANN that N916LJ seems in "Very good shape...
not as good as Lionel Morrison's aircraft (the first Cirrus to use the
CAPS system)... the leading edges of both wings scraped trees as it came
down but it looks like the landing gear never actually got to the
ground, since it was hung up in the trees."

ANN reached Cirrus CEO, Alan Klapmeier, just as he was returning from
the impact site, who was very pleased to be talking about incidents in
which no one came to harm. "First, in terms of preliminaries, no one
knows what really happened until NTSB makes final determination... but
obviously the whole purpose of the parachute was to give pilots one more
choice when they run out of options... and that sure appears to be the
case (in these incidents). These were tough situations for these guys
and we're glad the chute was there to give them a second chance."

[ANN Thanks Jeff Ippoliti and COPA's Mike Radomsky for their help in
preparing this article].


--
Peter

Peter R. wrote
An interview with the pilot suggests that poor avionics maintenance may
have been the cause.

I wonder how many of those "Loss of control in IMC" accidents,
generally attributed to pilot error, are really the result of multiple
failures. Face it, guys - we're flying old obsolete junk. I know
lots of pilots who tell stories of multiple failures on a single
flight. It happens.

However, flying into low IMC immediately after the
aircraft returned from maintenance may have been a bad decision.

In my opinion, it's an absolutely unacceptable decision. Test flights
are day-VFR events. I've had things go wrong on test flights before,
and they didn't always have an obvious connection to the maintenance
being performed. However, since I always landed the plane, I was
always able to do a detailed examination of the intact systems
afterwards - and in the end, it always turned out that the failures
were related to the maintenance, though in non-obvious ways that
generally pointed out previous marginal maintenance and/or very poor
design that clearly did not include a complete analysis of the failure
modes.

But of course he had a parachute. Would he have launched into low IMC
without a parachute immediately following maintenance?

Michael

Michael ) wrote:

In my opinion, it's an absolutely unacceptable decision. Test flights
are day-VFR events. I've had things go wrong on test flights before,
and they didn't always have an obvious connection to the maintenance
being performed.

That is the advice I follow. I recall returning to my home class C airport
one sunny, VFR day last fall when there was a nervous call to approach from
another pilot flying a Beech Sundowner. He had just departed and was
requesting an immediate landing back at the airport.

The controller asked if he was having problems, to which he answered that
he had to work hard to prevent the aircraft from entering a steep left
bank. He did not declare an emergency, but wanted priority to land.

His landing was uneventful and he pulled into the same FBO I keep my
aircraft. After I secured my aircraft, I walked over to this pilot, who
was still sitting in his aircraft, and told him I had heard his plight on
the frequency. He described the problem he was having, then followed the
description up with, "this was my test flight after the aircraft had just
come out of annual."


--
Peter

While I generally agree with your statements about old instruments,
presumably the instruments in a Cirrus SR22 are not very old.

Mike
MU-2


"Michael" wrote in message
om...
Peter R. wrote
An interview with the pilot suggests that poor avionics maintenance may
have been the cause.

I wonder how many of those "Loss of control in IMC" accidents,
generally attributed to pilot error, are really the result of multiple
failures. Face it, guys - we're flying old obsolete junk. I know
lots of pilots who tell stories of multiple failures on a single
flight. It happens.

However, flying into low IMC immediately after the
aircraft returned from maintenance may have been a bad decision.

In my opinion, it's an absolutely unacceptable decision. Test flights
are day-VFR events. I've had things go wrong on test flights before,
and they didn't always have an obvious connection to the maintenance
being performed. However, since I always landed the plane, I was
always able to do a detailed examination of the intact systems
afterwards - and in the end, it always turned out that the failures
were related to the maintenance, though in non-obvious ways that
generally pointed out previous marginal maintenance and/or very poor
design that clearly did not include a complete analysis of the failure
modes.

But of course he had a parachute. Would he have launched into low IMC
without a parachute immediately following maintenance?

Michael

"Mike Rapoport" wrote
While I generally agree with your statements about old instruments,
presumably the instruments in a Cirrus SR22 are not very old.

There's a difference between a new instrument, and an instrument that
was recently manufactured to an obsolete design. I've spent years
designing instruments (not for aviation - no money there) and learned
something interesting. No design is static - it either evolves or
rots.

When an instrument is first designed, there are inevitable growing
pains in manufacturing. This is expected, and it's fairly typical for
a design engineer to spend a fair amount of time in manufacturing to
bring the production people up to speed. But that's not the end.

In a normal environment, there are continuous changes. Upgrades are
made. Production processes are streamlined. Lower cost vendors are
found, and engineering asessments/changes are made to accomodate the
lower cost parts. Subassemblies are outsourced, and invariably the
outsourcing process turns up problems in the documentation. But even
if you don't plan any changes, they happen anyway. Vendors change
their products subtly, or discontinue them completely, or just go out
of business. Design and production changes are made to accomodate
this.

Eventually the design ages to the point where too many parts are
unavailable, better methods exists, and it's time to redesign from
scratch. That's a normal product life cycle.

In GA, the process is perverted. Any change triggers a paperwork
avalanche, so changes are avoided at all costs. Engineering
involvement with a product post-release is dramatically reduced. Life
cycles are very long. As a result, when an unplanned change occurs,
the product often gets worse. This is a well-documented phenomenon in
aviation engines (when was the last time a large Continental jug made
TBO?) but it's even more true for smaller products.

This was a steam gauge Cirrus. The gauges in it were more than likely
of relatively recent manufacture - and obsolete design.

Michael

"Michael" wrote in message
om...
Peter R. wrote
An interview with the pilot suggests that poor avionics maintenance may
have been the cause.

I wonder how many of those "Loss of control in IMC" accidents,
generally attributed to pilot error, are really the result of multiple
failures. Face it, guys - we're flying old obsolete junk. I know
lots of pilots who tell stories of multiple failures on a single
flight. It happens.


Well, maybe *you* are flying old obsolete junk, but a Cirrus hardly
qualifies. In fact, even the old obsolete junk tends to have fairly new
equipment in it.

I know lots of pilots, too. Some of them have even more experience than what
you claim to have. And they tell a lot of stories. I don't think that
necessarily means that the stories are accurate depictions of events or that
the pilots interpreted those events correctly. Even so, I will allow that
multiple failures in different systems happen and I never said that they
didn't. I have lost the radar, the oil pressure in one engine, and had a
life raft deploy and wrap itself around the tail simultaneously while IMC
and in thunderstorms. What are the odds?

My point is that Occam's razor usually works -- the simplest explanation is
generally the most probable. The most probable explanation here is that the
pilot became disoriented and only thought all his instruments were failing
when none of them or perhaps only one or two of them were actually failing.
That does not mean that I don't think what the pilot says happened is
impossible. It is just a less likely scenario. I think you are the only
pilot I know who claims to have your kind of experience who disagrees with
that.

C J Campbell ) wrote:

snip
My point is that Occam's razor usually works -- the simplest explanation is
generally the most probable. The most probable explanation here is that the
pilot became disoriented and only thought all his instruments were failing
when none of them or perhaps only one or two of them were actually failing.
That does not mean that I don't think what the pilot says happened is
impossible.

Your explanation certainly seems plausible to me.

--
Peter

No, the pilot was IFR rated and on an instrument flight plan. He had over 600
hours in his Cirrus which probably makes him one of the higher-time pilots in
type.

Dave Reinhart


C J Campbell wrote:

"Marco Leon" mleon(at)optonline.net wrote in message
...
Sure the chute worked as advertised. Great.

What irks me is how and why the aircraft experienced all these instrument
failures one right after another.

The man flew into IMC at 400 feet (I believe he was VFR and had no
instrument rating) and probably became disoriented. His instruments did not
fail. He did.