When Cirrus unveiled the prototype that would become the SR20 at Oshkosh in 1994, the airplane looked like just another plastic homebuilt, albeit one that was more refined. But it had a twist. Amidst skepticism bordering on derision, Cirrus proposed a radical idea: in the event of an unrecoverable emergency, the entire airplane would have a parachute capable of lowering the aircraft to the ground in one piece, if not gently.
Never work, said some critics, never sell said others and even many who liked the idea harbored a deep-seated resignation that the FAA would never certify such a bleeding-edge idea.
Cirrus has, of course, proved the doubters decidedly wrong. Not only did the company certify the parachute for both of its models-the SR20 and the SR22-but just as the companys president, Alan Klapmeier predicted, the parachute has and is proving a keystone in a successful sales effort by Cirrus. Despite a cold shoulder from stick-and-rudder traditionalists, the Klapmeier brothers, Alan and Dale, have seen their vision proven.
The only troubling side of this GA success story is that the Cirrus airplanes have accumulated what can best be described as an unenviable initial accident record. The two Cirrus models have suffered at least eight accidents, four of them with fatalities, yet the company has fewer than 500 aircraft flying.
Crashes of new airplanes are nothing new, of course, and are thus hardly newsworthy. Yet the Cirrus crashes are news precisely because the aircraft are being watched so closely. When a new Cessna 182 makes a smoking hole, it hardly merits notice, while a Cirrus accident usually earns a blurb here and there in aviation magazines that normally ignore minor wrecks.
The Cirrus crashes have attracted raised eyebrows in the industry both because of the relatively high number and because thus far, the CAPS parachute has yet to save the day, even once. On paper, the Cirrus is one of the safest GA airplanes ever designed and the expectations for it are accordingly high. But in reality, the initial safety record has yet to prove out the design.
Low Numbers, High Rate
As weve often reported, comparing one models accident record against anothers is fraught with missteps. The NTSBs accident reporting tends toward sketchiness and the all-important hours-flown totals are difficult to come by.
Right up front we’ll offer this disclaimer: both Cirrus and Lancair are too new to have accumulated a truly meaningful accident record. Therefore, we don’t think its entirely fair to make too much of the data just yet.
On the other hand, Diamond has been in the game since 1994 and does have a longer-term record which we think is impressive. Further, because Cirrus could have been expected to do better than it has, were not inclined to sweep the accident record under the rug entirely and attribute it to bad luck.
With these provisos in mind, heres a quick look at comparative accident rates: With some 800 aircraft flying worldwide and nearing 1 million fleet hours, Diamonds fleet has posted an impressively low accident rate. In the U.S. and Canada, the Katana has flown about 800,000 hours and we count 24 accidents for an overall rate of 3 accidents per 100,000 flight hours, below average for the GA fleet.
Just this summer, the Katana had its second fatal accident in Leesburg, Virginia, for a fatal rate of .25/100,000 hours, again, among the lowest if not the lowest of GA aircraft in the U.S.
Lancair has had only one accident, the fatal crash of a pre-production airplane in January of 1999. To date, it has delivered a fraction of what Cirrus has, about 45 Columbia 300s. The fleet has accumulated too few hours to make a realistic stab at rate calculations.
Cirrus estimates its fleet has accumulated about 77,000 hours. As of mid-summer 2002, with Cirrus nearing delivery of 500 airplanes, we count eight accidents, half of them fatal, for an overall accident rate of about 10 per 100,000 hours or three times that of the typical GA aircraft.
The fatal accident rate for Cirrus aircraft is also high at 5 fatalities per 100,000 hours, compared to a GA average of 1 or less per 100,000 hours. Once again, we note that these calculations are based on small total numbers and are almost certain to decline as the fleet matures. Nonetheless, we still think it fair to examine the rate and ponder why its so high.
Diamond has accumulated a much better initial record and allowing for far fewer aircraft flying, so has Lancair. While it is true that Katanas motoring around in the pattern face different risk profiles than SR22s charging across half a continent, its also true that theyre flown by ham-fisted students and green-as-grass CFIs who can break airplanes with the best of them.
Examining recent traditional designs for which reasonably accurate accident data is available, we note that the Mooney Ovation first appeared in 1994 but appears to have suffered no accidents at all for its first four years in production. On the other hand, its actual rate may be as high as the Cirrus; some 200-plus are flying for an estimated total fleet hours of some 41,000. That gives the Ovation an overall rate of 9.7/100,000 hours.
Examining Cessnas new production, we found that the company delivered almost twice as many new Skyhawks in its first two years of renewed production as Cirrus has in its entire history. As far as we can tell, the new Skyhawk suffered about nine accidents during this period, two fatal. Cessna estimates that since new production resumed, Skyhawks have accumulated about 2 million hours for an estimated overall accident rate of 2.1/100,000 and a fatal rate of .3/100,000 hours.
These numbers, if accurate, are a bit better than the long-term accident records for the Skyhawk, which we think is good news. Some 43 Skyhawks of about 2100 built since resumption of production in 1997 have crashed.
Yet no one raises an eyebrow about the Mooney or the Skyhawk because neither is a Cirrus, which burst upon the market with lofty claims about new thinking in crashworthiness and safety. Fair question, then: Is there something wrong with Cirrus airplanes that weve simply missed, some underlying fatal flaw? The short answer is we don’t think so but we still wonder if something is amiss.
A Pattern? Not Really
Normally, when an airplane has a fatal flaw, it shows up in accident patterns with shared characteristics. But that doesnt appear to be the case with the Cirrus aircraft, unless pilot proficiency/judgment issues are considered. And obviously, these must be considered to evaluate an aircraft fairly.
Other than a fatal pre-production test crash, the first Cirrus accident was a fatal VFR-into-IMC/CFIT in April of 2001. The pilot wasnt instrument rated. Two months later, a landing accident injured a pilot and destroyed an SR22 in Springfield, Illinois.
Later that summer, an SR22 suffered an odd engine failure and made an emergency landing in Gibson, Georgia. We call it odd because the pilot inadvertently entered a thunderstorm and reported that resultant G forces caused the engine to stop and it couldnt be restarted. The landing gear separated on landing but no one was seriously hurt.
In September 2001, an SR20 suffered an engine failure after a loose oil drain plug caused the engine to fail because of oil starvation. Two occupants were injured during the forced landing.
In March of this year, two pilots were uninjured in another oddball accident. The two were flying an SR20 on autopilot in IMC near Lexington, Kentucky. The pilot told the NTSB that the turn coordinator-which operates the S-TEC autopilot-was pegged to the left with no flag showing. He uncoupled the AP but by then, the aircraft was in a steep dive. It exited the base of the clouds and, unable to regain control, the pilot re-entered the overcast at which point he reported that the AI tumbled.
The two pilots attempted to deploy the CAPS but couldnt displace the activation handle and they later told the NTSB they couldnt tell if it had been deployed or not. The aircraft touched down in a field and came to rest against a tree. Subsequently, the CAPS fired on the ground. A post accident investigation revealed no instrumentation or autopilot failures, according to the NTSBs preliminary report, and the aircraft crash landed with a perfectly functioning engine.
In April, a factory new SR22 with just a few hours on it, crashed into a field near Parish, New York, killing both occupants, who were the co-owners of the airplane. They had taken delivery of the airplane only a few weeks before the fatal accident. Witnesses, according to the NTSB, described the SR22 as having entered a flat spin, the only recovery from which is deployment of the CAPS, according to the Cirrus POH. Its not known if the pilots attempted to deploy the CAPS and couldnt or if they simply didnt try.
The most recent Cirrus accident involved an SR20 at Angel Fire, New Mexico. The aircraft crashed into rising terrain after takeoff in high density altitude conditions, killing the pilot. As we go press, we have no clue as to the cause of the Angel Fire crash but density altitude may be the culprit. In reality, the accident picture is somewhat worse in that several additional crashes were classified as incidents. We havent included these in our count.
Regardless, the bottom line is not pretty for Cirrus: eight total accidents, four fatal and two in which the ballistic parachute system could have saved the day but either wasnt deployed or didnt function. Cirrus has admitted that the cable mechanism controlling the parachute could have yielded a hard pull. It has since redesigned the mechanism and retrofitted existing aircraft via service bulletins.
The cable issue aside, a review of the Cirrus accidents-at least those involving production aircraft-reveal nothing to damn the aircraft itself, in our estimation. The two engine failures appear to be induced by either inadequate maintenance or fuel exhaustion and thus far, the three production-version fatal accidents have failed to implicate the aircraft or its systems. If the Parish, New York accident was indeed a stall/spin, its the first such occurrence for a Cirrus. Although neither the SR20 nor SR22 are certified for spins, both have undergone some spin testing and even though spin recovery may be neither conventional nor as straightforward as in other models, the so-called equivalent level of safety is the parachute. Standard recovery calls for deployment of the CAPS. Thus far, there’s no indication that this was attempted in the Parish crash.
Training Issues
The harsh reality of general aviation safety is that most crashes are caused by pilot error, not an aircraft mechanical failure or design flaw. While its true that certain design features may induce pilot error-such as poor climb capability or ineffective flaps or misplaced controls-we havent seen this in the Cirrus, nor have owners complained about anything other than minor recurrent maintenance issues.