Cirrus chute deployment -- an incredible story

There seems to be a sense that consciousness is a binary switch.
Unconscious/Conscious, On/Off. Too many "Man from U.N.C.L.E" and
"Mission Impossible" reruns. See 'epileptic seizures' elsewhere in this
thread.

Despite all the post event analysis by the pilot, perhaps we should
think of him *reacting* to events while in a mental fog. He reacted the
best he could to what he was experiencing and with his brain doing the
best it could.

Jose wrote:
Once the pilot had recovered, the =emergency= was over. It was still a
crisis situation, but time was no longer of the essence. One should
consider all available options, including looking out the window before
pulling the chute if there's time to do so (which there was).

"Maule Driver" wrote in message
...


However, having spent some time with an epileptic and having witnessed a
few seizures, it's clear to me that recovery from a big epileptic seizure
is not instant. The senses return slowly, particularly the sense of where
you are and what you were doing (note when caring for a person coming out
of a seizure that they may not know where they are, time of day, etc

That's my point. It's likely that he made the decision to fire the chute
while still in a mental "fog" from the seizure. He is entirely blameless
and should be congratulated for being alive. But we shouldn't rubberstamp
that action as the correct thing to do, solely out of sympathy for him.

having spent some time with an epileptic and having witnessed a
few seizures, it's clear to me that recovery from a big epileptic
seizure is not instant. The senses return slowly, particularly the
sense of where you are and what you were doing

Having lived with an epileptic for about half a year, my experience
matches yours. Recovery from a seizure is anything but instantaneous.
It can take several seconds, or several minutes, or longer. There is
no real consistency. There is invariably a period when the epileptic
is conscious and aware, but not all there - still in a mental fog.
There is also a learned response to curtail action until full mental
acuity returns - but I imagine this is a learned response, not
something one instinctively learns after the first seizure.

In other words - I agree with the other poster. The pilot likely acted
in a mental fog. He was in the mental fog through no fault of his own,
and could not possibly be expected to know that his mental faculties
were diminished at the moment. He is certainly not to blame.

Having said that - I think that it is absolutely legitimate to question
whether he took the correct action (remembering always that if he did
not, he can't possibly be faulted for this given his condition).
However, I'm not all that certain his action was incorrect, even if his
reasons are specious.

no desire to proceed any further into marginal weather

I can't see that the weather was an issue here - bases at 2000, 2-5 in
haze might be marginal VFR - but it's easy IFR by anyone's definition,
and he was on an IFR flight plan.

concern over the loss of altitude;

1700 ft isn't terribly high, but it's not low either and that plane
climbs quite well especially with only one aboard. He could have been
back at his assigned altitude of 3000 in 2 minutes of cruise climb or 1
minute in a maximum performance climb.

concern that the plane's structural integrity was compromised by the
high speed descent and recovery

Concern regarding the structural integrity of the plane is misplaced -
a momentary overspeed without significant overgee, without the violent
shaking that would accompany flutter, and without any indication of
control problems certainly does not call for parachute activation.

and concern that the weakness in my
right leg might hinder my ability to control the plane down to the
runway

The Cirrus doesn't need much rudder - even a no-rudder landing,
assuming no significant crosswind, would most likely mean no damage -
and certainly no injury.

However, the very quality of the reasoning argues for diminished mental
capacity. Also note that there were only three things he had to do for
a proper parachute activation - reduce airspeed below 130 kts, shut
down the engine, and pull the handle. He got one out of three right.
If that's as well as he was going to do, how well was he going to do
for the next few minutes of flight? Sure, he got better - but he
didn't know he was going to get better. He could have gotten worse.

As it happened, not shutting down the engine served him well - he was
able to use it for steering - but that was luck. It was also luck that
he recovered enough to do this. Had he taken minutes rather than
seconds to recover sufficiently (and I can assure you I've seen
recoveries from even mild epileptic seizures take that long) he might
have gotten himself killed. Had he had another seizure (and I've seen
a relatively brief and mild seizure followed by a minute or so of
relative lucidity followed by a much more prolonged and severe seizure)
he would certainly have been better off under parachute.

What I really have a problem understanding is not the people who say
the pilot is not at fault (I agree) nor the people who say that given
his medical condition, activation made sense (I agree), but the ones
who are somehow trying to claim the reasons he gives are valid, rather
than the result of diminished mental capacity at the time the decision
was made.

Michael

Exactly what I think.

Michael wrote:

What I really have a problem understanding is not the people who say
the pilot is not at fault (I agree) nor the people who say that given
his medical condition, activation made sense (I agree), but the ones
who are somehow trying to claim the reasons he gives are valid, rather
than the result of diminished mental capacity at the time the decision
was made.

Michael

Me too, but he says it better.

"Maule Driver" wrote in message
m...
Exactly what I think.

Michael wrote:

What I really have a problem understanding is not the people who say
the pilot is not at fault (I agree) nor the people who say that given
his medical condition, activation made sense (I agree), but the ones
who are somehow trying to claim the reasons he gives are valid, rather
than the result of diminished mental capacity at the time the decision
was made.

Michael

Thanks for taking the time to share your story. Lots of food for
thought. I can identify with the "so this is how it ends" moment. Had
one a few years back when I had a hold of 480 volts.
--
Gene Seibel
Tales of Flight - http://pad39a.com/gene/tales.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.

Michael182/G wrote:

Don't fly a single engine plane that isn't equipped with a
parachute. Although the chances of actually encountering an emergency
situation that is worthy of "pulling the chute" are probably small
to infinitesimal over the course of any given pilot's career, the
penalty for not having a parachute is almost certain death. Each pilot
has to establish and evaluate their own risk assessment criteria, but
for me something that has a greater than 50% risk of death, even if
only 1% of the time, is an unacceptable risk. That's why I bought a
Cirrus in the first place.

Utter horse****, and destructive horse**** at that. Now I have
"semiknowledgable" people telling me that clearly you must get an airplane
with a parachute to be safe. Guess what. Airplanes still fly unless you
rip the wings off. Certainly LOC (Loss of Control) followed by CFIT
is real, but its..... Still...... Pilot..... Error.......

Just stop.

Scott Moore wrote:

Utter horse****, and destructive horse**** at that. Now I have
"semiknowledgable" people telling me that clearly you must get an airplane
with a parachute to be safe.

To be fair, you should indicate that you are responding to the Cirrus
accident pilot, not Michael 182. Michael was merely re-posting the story
for this newsgroup's benefit, but the method in which you quoted the
article makes it appear as if you are replying to Michael.

--
Peter
























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"G. Sylvester" writes:

Peter R. wrote:
The only health-related concern he mentioned was the weakness in his right
leg.

I'm not a trained MD but I'd consider blacking out as a solo PIC as
a health concern.

Me too -- but Peter is correct that the pilot in question did *not*
mention the possibility of a recurrence of the blackout in his
description of his decision-making process. I think it *should* have
been there!

Also, he seemed awfully willing to go for a water ditching while being
aware of his compromised physical state (weak leg; and he didn't
mention, again, the risk of another blackout) -- and in fact he had
some dificulty getting out because of that, though it came out okay in
the end.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/