Saturday should have been a good day for Jeff Ippoliti. And, ultimately, we'd have to suggest that it was.

Despite low scud and low visibility, he was very comfortable with his SR22, an IFR-equipped aircraft that he'd logged nearly 600 hours in, and one he'd come to depend on for an unparalleled degree of freedom in getting where he wanted to go... swiftly.

A founding member of the highly regarded Cirrus Owner's and Pilot's Association, Jeff had been flying a Cirrus Design SR22, Serial Number 80, for several years and simply wouldn't think of owning anything else. He loved the speed, the looks, and the safety features and he'd gotten quite comfortable with his personal bird, N916LJ. 

He started the morning picking up his airplane at the local service center, where he'd had it worked on, in order to deal with "some electrical (and other) issues."

The shop assured him he was good to go, and after his usual preflight and prep, Jeff launched out of Ft. Lauderdale Exec (FXE) enroute to Palm Beach International, a short hop up the road. Weather was not all that good. Broken bases at 400 feet and IFR visibility meant that much of the trip would be conducted under IFR, though the scud reportedly had a number of "occasionally broken" layers up to, and through, 6000 feet.

Ippoliti launched IFR, from FXE, and encountered "heavy IMC" shortly after leaving the ground. Settling into his normal scan and IFR flying patterns for the short trip up the coast, Jeff went into the soup at only 400 feet AGL and continued the SR22's robust climb, now approved to proceed to 2000 feet, as he switched over from tower freq's to the local center.

From there, a pleasant effort requiring professional instrument flying skills started tasking him in ways he had hoped to avoid.

"Minutes after departure, I started experiencing instrument failures, one after another. No warning. No smoke. No clues. Just gauges going out one after another."

As the first gauge failed, Jeff told Center he wanted to turn back. Center immediately gave him vectors for the return, but thereafter the perceived succession of failures made the turn-around seem fairly iffy.

Ippoliti was stunned. Not only were gauges failing, but they were failing in systems that didn't appear to be related. In a matter of seconds, just hundreds of feet from the ground and untold obstacles obscured by IMC, he really didn't know what to trust. This couldn't be good.

With an unknown number of hazards looming, he informed ATC that he was clearly in trouble. And after some initial hope of heading back, the SR22 pilot realized that turning back to the airport was something he wasn't sure he could do with his gauges continuing to fail in "rapid succession."

"I told center I couldn't turn back... that I was going to pull the chute." Jeff then told ANN that one of the few responses he remembered from that moment on was center responding, "you're going to pull what?"

From there, Ippoliti's activities were quick and assured. "I'd thought about this... but I never expected to have to do it." Jeff pulled the power back, killed the engine and reached up for the BRS CAPS handle... and pulled.

Despite all his trepidation, Jeff noted that the pull went well, "No problem with that, it pulled easily."

BANG!

The chute OPENED. Ippoliti then described feeling a little 'G' as the plane slowed, swung around a bit, and then things calmed down remarkably fast.

"From there it was almost a non-event. The ELT went off right away and prevented me from understanding Center because it was so loud, and the pilot door came off as the chute fired... but the ride down lasted only seconds as I came down on some trees and just... stopped."

Ippoliti was alive and had landed in a local park. The aircraft was not only intact, but surprisingly suffered limited damage... "a lot less than what might have been," he noted. He doesn't have much to say about the landing impact, as the trees apparently absorbed most of the energy, and turned history's third emergency CAPS landing into a "relative non-event."

People who watched the plane land came immediately to the site and Ippoliti soon found himself in the role of dutiful reporter (and unwanted center of attention) to the numerous Law Enforcement, FAA and other government agencies who converged on the scene. "FAA was terrific," he said, and the support he got from Cirrus Design, shortly thereafter (including a ride home), "was fantastic." 

Jeff graciously called ANN less than 24 hours after his ordeal... a time when there had to be a lot of things on his mind, though one thing seemed certain. When asked if he was going to get another plane, he answered quickly, "ABSOLUTELY... another Cirrus. I wouldn't fly anything else."

As Ippoliti becomes the third pilot to experience what all Cirrus flyers prepare for (and hope never to use), he joins the "informed unanimity" that has developed from each of the survivors... a strong belief in a safety system that was once looked down-upon by much of the rest of the GA industry.. an industry who is now beginning to understand that this technology has saved six lives so far and will, undoubtedly, keep doing so far into the future.

Observers at the scene tell ANN that N916LJ seems in "Very good shape... not as good as Lionel Morrison's aircraft (the first Cirrus to use the CAPS system)... the leading edges of both wings scraped trees as it came down but it looks like the landing gear never actually got to the ground, since it was hung up in the trees."

ANN reached Cirrus CEO, Alan Klapmeier, just as he was returning from the impact site, who was very pleased to be talking about incidents in which no one came to harm. "First, in terms of preliminaries, no one knows what really happened until NTSB makes final determination... but obviously the whole purpose of the parachute was to give pilots one more choice when they run out of options... and that sure appears to be the case (in these incidents). These were tough situations for these guys and we're glad the chute was there to give them a second chance." 

[ANN Thanks Jeff Ippoliti and COPA's Mike Radomsky for their help in preparing this article].

FMI: www.cirrusdesign.com, www.brsparachutes.com, www.cirruspilots.org