In case you were still looking for that elusive, last-minute Christmas present for Alaska Paul... Edited for brevity. Hat tip: Drudge
Canadian rancher Albert Kolk's small plane banked uncontrollably in darkness over the Monashee mountains, then began spiraling toward earth. "Seat belts!" he barked to his teenage grandson and two young friends. Then he reached for a red lever in the cockpit. Suddenly, an orange-and-white parachute as big as a house opened above the plane and gently landed his stricken aircraft in a rocky clearing. If the maker of the parachute that saved Kolk's life this past spring succeeds, one day commercial aircraft like regional commuter jets may have similar safety systems. Kolk, who was piloting his private plane April 8 from Seattle to his ranch in British Columbia, remembered reaching for the parachute handle as his plane slipped into a dangerous flat spin over the mountains in British Columbia, "like how a dog chases its tail." A seasoned pilot, Kolk said he had never experienced such a disaster in over a decade of private flying. "I knew I was in trouble. I couldn't straighten out," Kolk said. "When that chute opened, it was a peaceful, wonderful feeling." Kolk's experience is one of four cases where parachute-equipped planes landed safely beneath a canopy since U.S. regulators approved the system six years ago. Ballistic Recovery System, based in St. Paul, Minn., says eight lives were saved in those four incidents, plus dozens of other people in accidents involving smaller parachute-equipped ultralight planes that resemble motorized gliders. |