BRS Wants Standard Terminology

In an interesting sidebar to a new Mission Statement, Ballistic Recovery Systems (BRS), the makers of lifesaving emergency airframe parachutes for certified, experimental, and ultralight aircraft, want to "Standardize the Terminology." The St. Paul, Minnesota company would like to see the following definitions used by aviators and by the public.

Here are BRS's definitions, with only some punctuation corrections. Our comments follow.

Deployment Environment

If a pilot elects to activate the BRS parachute "outside of the deployment environment" (too fast, etc.), then he relinquishes any guarantee of safety.

Deployment Landing

Successful use of product -- situation where an aircraft, pilot or environmental failure occurred, but the parachute worked successfully. People were not killed, no significant injuries occurred, aircraft is damaged but probably repairable.

Impact Deployment

When the parachute is seen as having "deployed" because it is outside of its housing and near the downed airplane. In reality, it was never activated by airplane occupants, and never truly deployed. Especially important, as the media that tends to misrepresent that the parachute had been deployed at various accidents/incidents.

Our Comments

BRS's definitions are aimed straight at hysterical and uninformed reporting, which we've seen in several mishaps, especially of BRS-equipped Cirrus aircraft. In at least one accident, the chute appears to have been deployed at an extremely high airspeed; in others, a postcrash deployment occurred.

The underlying concept is a good one -- standardize the terms so that news media report these parachute deployments accurately, and so that people in general understand what actually happened in each case. But we're not so sure that the exact terms BRS has chosen are as clear and accurate as possible, or necessary.

"Deployment Environment" might better be "Deployment Envelope," which would bring airframe parachute terminology into line with that used by ejection seats. "Deployment Landing" appears to be a solution without much of a problem. In fact, the aircraft has made a safe touchdown in this case, but each one is a little different due to the differing touchdown environments. The case may come wherein a normal deployment results in a freak landing in unsurvivable position (on cliffside, or a tall building, for example.

Finally, "Impact Deployment" has an unfortunate suggestion that an incompletely-deployed chute was set off by impact. This raises the question of how stable the BRS is (suggesting a good hard bump can set it of, which isn't true), and also -- and more importantly -- doesn't cover the gamut of reasons a chute gets deployed.

If the chute is out of the packing, it needs to be examined by an expert to determine why and how it got that way. Even if much of the airframe itself is consumed by postcrash fire, to the point where the position of the deployment handle is unknown, the condition of the rocket and the lines will tell the story to knowledgeable eyes. Were the lines fully stretched? Where is the slider? These answers let an expert judge whether the chute may have been command-deployed outside its safe envelope (too late), or whether the rocket cooked off due to post-crash fire, or even whether the system was fired or the chute pulled out by rescue and recovery personnel -- all can happen.

The point of this being, perhaps, a very fundamental that we're sure BRS would agree with: reporters shouldn't make assumptions or speculate about chute deployments without, at the barest of minimums, properly identifying such assumptions or speculation. Standard terminology may help, and it might be better to get behind BRS's suggestions -- however imperfect -- than not to standardize at all.

And everyone in aviation -- we reporters, and the flying public as well, because you're all experts to your non-flying friends and neighbors -- needs to bear in mind the many factors and parameters involved in airframe parachute deployments.

It would be a pity if people decline to specify, order or use such a proven life-saving technology because they had fallen victim to incorrect information.

FMI: www.brsparachutes.com