Summary
A small plane crash in Fullerton, California, killed two people onboard and injured 19 warehouse workers, 11 of whom were hospitalized.
The single-engine Van’s Aircraft RV-10, a kit-built plane, took off from Fullerton Municipal Airport, reached 900 feet, and requested an emergency return before crashing short of the runway into a furniture warehouse, causing a large fire.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation, with authorities examining why the pilot attempted to return.
Significant damage to the warehouse was reported.
So… while way outside my ability to own… pretty much all Cirrus aircraft come with parachutes. Rather than being for the pilot/passengers, the entire aircraft is parachuted down “reasonably” safe. (way more reasonably than crashing into.
Just something that probably should be made mandatory on all light aircraft but won’t be because… reasons.
Cirrus aircraft are expensive even by the stratospheric standards of general aviation, which leads to a “no seatbelts, we die like real men” attitude from your average GA pilot with a 60-year-old Cessna that flies backwards in a stiff breeze.
That said, the RV-10 is a (relatively) inexpensive kit plane, and one that has a couple parachute systems available for it. In the case of a kit plane, I think it’s not unreasonable to say that adding the parachute system is a good idea… the incident rate with such aircraft is much higher than with other general aviation aircraft, and the cost of adding the chute isn’t eye-popping compared to the other costs involved.
Yeah? Cirrus are expensive.
But not because of the parachutes. I’m just aware of a few incidents where the parachutes worked. (And none they didn’t. Might be a marketing thing.)