Engine Failure Forces Use of Airframe Chute Over Mountains

Pilot Albert Youngwerth has been telling an interesting tale on Facebook... after having walked away from the emergency parachute deployment of his chute-equipped Lancair ES.

Posted October 15th, Albert gets right to the point... "Crashed my airplane yesterday??"

That's one way to get a reader's attention...

He continues, "Descending into Eugene, 35 miles out or so, over the mountains, bit lower than I would normally be for a broken cloud layer. Sudden engine decel and misfire. Ruhroo. Made a quick glide assessment, nothing but forest. Went through all the emergency checklist items in my head, engine just got worse, cockpit starting to fill with some smoke, not a ton of altitude, committed to a forced landing. Let ATC know where I was at, surveyed my glide options again, nothing but dense forest."

Deadsticking into densely forested territory, and in the mountains, no less, seemed like a pretty risky event, so he "yanked the handle and after a wild ride bouncing through the trees," he came to an abrupt stop on the floor of the forest after the chute minimized the descent rate while the airframe took the brunt of the damage.

Youngwerth advises that, "Kids, if you fly single engine over hostile terrain, get an airframe parachute. Not sure I would have survived that without it. I believe BRS has a better than 99% survival rate when deployed within the operating parameters."

He adds that, "Now here is the funny part. I hit the forest floor, jump out of the plane (just in case it was about to explode), see that I'm 100% ok and holler (F---) Yeah! Survey my surroundings, thinking I'm way deep in the forest! Getting dark, I'll be spending the night and they're going to pluck me out in the morning with a helicopter. That'll be kinda cool, I've never flown in a helicopter. Then I get back in the plane to get on the radio to let ATC know I'm ok. As I'm talking to an airliner on 121.5, I hear a woosh go by, was that a car? Nahh, can't be, I'm in the middle of the damn forest. Finish my radio talk, I'm walking around and sure as shit, I see the top of a truck go whizzing by. I landed 20 yards from a paved one-lane road... My lucky day!"

The Lancair ES is likely a total loss but Youngwerth will fly again... thanking his foresight to add a chute to the experimental kit aircraft.

He had the presence of mind to record a short video right after exiting the airplane and raw emotion of his survival is an interesting exposition about what one things when they have JUST dodged the grim reaper... check the link to see for yourself. And as one of the guys that tested this system decades ago and has been under that chute over a dozen times in flight test... Welcome to the club, Albert!

FMI: www.lancair.com, www.facebook.com/albert.youngwerth