Cirrus SF50 Jet Pilot Does ‘Right Thing’ And Deploys Chute

The pilot of a Cirrus Vision Jet SF-50 Vision Jet became the first pilot in the aircraft’s history to deploy the jet’s parachute during an accident on Sept. 9 in Orlando. 

The personal jet, N77VJ, had departed from the Opa-Locka Executive Airport near Miami at 2:13 local time. Less than an hour later, after encountering severe turbulence, the pilot pulled the chute and landed in Lake Tohopekaliga, Orlando, according to the FAA. The pilot and two passengers received minor injuries. 

The jet, manufactured in 2018, is registered to TAC9, based in Plantation, Florida. It is co-owned by TAC9 and Vision Aviation, according to FAA records. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board is ongoing. 

“What we’re excited about is that the pilot did the right thing, meaning he pulled the chute when he wasn’t in control of the airplane,” Zean Nielsen, Cirrus CEO, told The Weekly of Business Aviation. “All the passengers lived and walked away relatively unscathed.” 

In training, Cirrus educates pilots on when to pull the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System—and when to not. 

“It worked,” Nielsen says. “The parachute did its job .... You could not have wished for a better outcome.”

The parachute system is standard equipment on the company’s lineup of products, including the SR20, SR22, SR22T single-engine piston aircraft and its SF50 Vision Jet. 

In all, Cirrus pilots have pulled chutes 117 times with 238 lives saved, Nielsen says. “Now, 238 people returned safely to their loved ones.” When a pilot pulls the parachute, essentially, he or she has lost control of the aircraft, and no runway close enough to use, he says. There are a variety of emergencies precluding that, including running out of fuel, bad weather conditions and other conditions. 

Over the years, a number of chute deployments have been caught on video and featured on YouTube.