There’s one feature Cirrus Aircraft sales people talk about a lot but had never demonstrated until Saturday when an Australian rep had to deploy the parachute while on a demo flight with prospective customers. Peter Edwards, 62, and his unidentified prospects, both 58-year-old men, took off for a flight over Australia’s Blue Mountains, just outside of Sydney, when something went wrong (local media quoted witnesses as saying the aircraft was “tailspinning out of control”) and Edwards pulled the handle. The parachute system worked as it is supposed to,” Edwards told Sydney’s Nine News. “Its meant to save lives and it worked. None of the three men was injured although one did get checked in the hospital after complaining of back and neck pain.
The aircraft descended under its parachute into the back yard of Sheila Riordan’s home in Lawson in front of about 20 witnesses who were attending a couple of real estate open houses in the neighborhood. They were all running back and forth because they did not know which way it was going to land, Riordan told the Sydney Daily Telegraph. The aircraft missed powerlines, roads and most other obstacles before landing on Riordan’s fence. The tail broke off the Cirrus but the remainder is intact.
