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 his 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].