In 2015, I shared a video of an SR22 whose pilot successfully deployed his Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) off of the coast of Maui, Hawai’i. I wrote at the time that I would update once the final report came out. I am rather behind on my todo list, I’m afraid.

The Cirrus SR22 is at the bottom of the Pacific, so there’s not much new in the final report. But the NTSB docket includes the pilot’s statement which is full of interesting detail. Between that and articles written about the event, it seems worth writing the whole thing up again.

The aircraft was a brand new Cirrus SR22, registered in the US as N7YT. It was being ferried from the US to Australia for delivery to some perfectly nice pilot who was probably very excited to get their beautiful new plane.

Preparation

This leg of the ferry route was from Tracy Municipal Airport in California to Kahului, Maui: about 2,100 nautical miles over the Pacific (3,900 km). The SR22 has a normal range of 1,200 nautical miles, so the Friday before the flight, two auxiliary fuel tanks were installed by SkyView Aviation, one forward and one aft, draining into the main wing tanks through a gravity-feed system. The CEO of SkyView, a qualified CFI and A&P mechanic, later told ABC news that they’d done around 1,200 ferry tank installations like this one without any serious problems.

After the installation, the ferry pilot inspected the aircraft and found two issues. The first was that the right aileron gap seal was missing: a thin strip that closes the small gap between the aileron and the trailing edge of the wing, which smoothes the airflow and improves roll response. The second was that SkyView hadn’t used clear fuel lines for the ferry tank installation. Clear lines allow the pilot to visually confirm the fuel flow to the main tanks.

The ferry pilot pointed this out to SkyView, who were in the process of testing the ferry tank system. In his statement to the NTSB, the pilot described the testing process. Skyview added around 15 gallons of fuel to each ferry tank, sealed them, and then pressurised the system to look for leaks. They found a leak in the pressure line to the aft tank, which was quickly repaired. The fuel then flowed normally from the ferry tanks to the main wing tanks. Skyview then changed a section of the fuel line to clear tubing, so that the pilot could visually confirm the fuel transfer while in flight.

The following day, Saturday the 24th of January, the pilot arrived in the afternoon to finish preparing the aircraft for the journey. He installed the High Frequency (HF) radio and survival equipment and then took the SR22 for a test flight with 32 gallons of fuel in each wing tank and 20 gallons of fuel in each ferry tank. At 6,500 feet, he tested both of the ferry tanks and confirmed that the fuel transferred to the main tanks. He tested the HF radio which he would need for long-range communication over the open ocean. Then he returned to Tracy with an RNAV approach to confirm that the autopilot and navigation systems were working.

After he landed, he topped off all four fuel tanks. The SR22 was now carrying 254 gallons of fuel, about 961 litres, which would cover the flight with a five-hour reserve. Everything looked great for the Sunday flight to Maui.

The Flight

On the 25th of January 2015, the pilot arrived at the airport, picked up the weather briefing and inspected the aircraft one last time, including smelling for fuel leaks.

He departed Tracy without incident, climbing to his cruising altitude of 10,000 feet. About 200 miles from the coast of California, he conducted his first fuel transfer, transferring 10 gallons of fuel from each ferry tank into the wings. He continued the flight.

About halfway to Maui, he opened the valves to transfer more fuel from the aft tank into the right wing. But the fuel didn’t transfer. When he looked at the clear fuel line that SkyView had put in at his insistence, he found there was no flow, just an air bubble sitting at the top of the line.

He checked the rubber top of the aft tank’s fuel cap. It was slack: there was no pressure in the tank.

He was already past his halfway point and flying with a tail wind. His only option was to continue the water crossing to Maui. He closed the aft tank valve and opened the forward tank valve. Fuel flowed from the forward tank into the right wing. He felt the forward tank’s fuel cap. The rubber top was pushed up: the forward tank had firm pressure.

He closed the forward valve and opened the aft valve to the left wing. He pitched the nose down ten to fifteen degrees. The aft ferry tank sits higher than the wing tanks so he was hoping that gravity would start the fuel flowing to the wings. He flew a couple of steep turns to see if the g-forces might start the flow. Finally, he tried opening the forward and aft valves in sequence, thinking that the pressure from the forward tank might prime the aft tank’s flow. Nothing worked.

It was time to accept the truth. He’d lost the aft tank.

The pilot used his satellite phone to call his operator and speak to the Chief Pilot. He explained his situation and what he’d tried so far. While he was talking, he drained as much as he could from the forward tank into both wings, so that he could work out exactly how much usable fuel he had.

He reduced the power to a low cruise setting of 55% to increase his range. Then he switched to the HF radio to call the high frequency radio communication network (ARINC) station in San Francisco, which handles Pacific oceanic traffic. He could hear them but they clearly couldn’t hear him. The pilot in an airliner flying overhead relayed the call, telling San Francisco about the fuel issue.

The pilot declared an emergency and then got back onto the satellite phone to talk to the Chief Pilot, who had some new ideas.

The first, closing all the valves to let the pressure build and then reopen, had no effect.

The Chief Pilot’s second idea was to somehow syphon the fuel from the aft tank to the forward tank.  To create a syphon, the pilot needed tubing. As there seemed no chance that the aft tank would regain pressure, he cut the pressure line at the top of the aft tank and as low to the bottom as he could reach. He made a small X-cut in the rubber fuel cap, about the size of a nickel and forced the piece of tubing through the cut into the fuel tank. This allowed him to syphon the fuel into an empty Gatorade bottle. Then he opened the fuel cap of the forward tank and poured the fuel in.

I hate to think about the fumes in that cockpit.

Using the Gatorade bottle, the pilot managed to transfer about 15 gallons from the aft tank into the forward tank. Then he opened the forward valve to transfer fuel into the wing tanks again.

Nothing happened.

No fuel flowed. Now neither ferry tank was working. All he had was the fuel in his wings.

He kept flying. Once the aircraft was in range, he contacted the Hawaiian National Coast Guard. He told them that he had only three hours of fuel remaining, not enough to make it to land.

The Ditching

The emergency was escalated to the Coast Guard Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Honolulu. Since 1958, the US Coast Guard runs a voluntary ship-reporting programme in which participating vessels report their positions, so rescue coordinators can see who is within range when someone needs help. The Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue System (AMVER) allowed Coast Guard to see that there was a ship within gliding range of the SR22. The cruise ship Veendam was on day 6 of an 18-day Circle Hawaii cruise round-trip from San Diego. The captain of Veendam agreed to assist.

Meanwhile, a Coast Guard C-130 departed the Air Station Barbers Point on Oahu to look for the SR22. They met up about 450 miles off the coast. The C-130 remained with the SR22, flying off of the SR22’s left wing. (The video footage from the C-130 was released early and that was the focus of my original article.)

By this point, the winds had improved. The pilot recalculated and figured his fuel would get him to within about 130 to 150 nautical miles of Maui: closer, but still short. The C-130 crew told him their helicopters could only reach 135 nautical miles off the coast but then told him about the cruise ship Veendam which was about 40 degrees off his course to the south. The pilot calculated he could reach her with 20 to 30 minutes of fuel to spare: enough time to set up for the ditching. He turned towards the ship.

When Veendam came into view, the pilot circled the area at 5,000 feet to judge the waves. The ship’s captain reported swells of twelve to fifteen feet, with winds at 25-30 knots at 255.

The Coast Guard instructed the pilot to fly on the starboard side of the ship. Once he was abeam, the pilot secured the engine and initiated the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS): a very large parachute designed to lower the aircraft and its occupants to the ground, or in this case, the ocean, under canopy.

The parachute deployed fully. The pilot opened the cockpit door and waited. With time to kill, he filmed himself using an on-board GoPro. ABC News got the exclusive.

I love that he used the satellite phone to call his dad and tell him that he loved him.

The SR22 impacted the water. The pilot got out of the aircraft and inflated the raft the deep swells of the Pacific and clambered into it.

The brand new aircraft sank out of sight.

The cruise ship was nowhere to be seen.

The Rescue

The pilot activated his Personal Locator Beacon, a handheld device which transmits a distress signal to search and rescue satellites. He was about 225 nautical miles off the coast of Maui.

The Coast Guard had stayed with the aircraft and passed the pilot’s location to the captain of Veendam, who diverted from her course towards him. The captain launched a lifeboat to get to the pilot aboard a tiny life raft bobbing on twelve-foot ocean swells.

The lifeboat quickly brought the pilot to the cruise ship and the crew gave him food and a bed to rest in. Veendam changed course again to head to the island of Maui.

AOPA’s article about the rescue says that the cruise ship’s support included the ship’s hotel manager disembarking with the pilot, to help defend the pilot from the over-eager Hawai’i press corps.

Meanwhile, the C-130 was flying back to Air Station Barbers Point when it was diverted for another emergency. (A Cessna 172 ditched on the way to Honolulu with three adults and a baby aboard. The pilot and passengers were pulled from the floating aircraft 11 miles west of Oahu by a Coast Guard MH-65 Dolphin helicopter. I’m a bit surprised that the AOPA article claims that they ran out of fuel. The NTSB report concludes with a partial power loss for unknown reasons. The passenger specifically recalls the pilot saying they had a quarter of a tank in both wings when the engine failed and the docket includes confirmation of this with a fuel receipt, so running out of fuel does not appear to have been the issue.)

The Aftermath

There’s no way to know what went wrong with the additional fuel tanks in the SR22 that day. The company that installed the reserve tanks told Tracy Press that the pilot made a mistake, quoting the company’s founder.

“You have to move a valve. So if you know what you’re doing, you turn a valve. It’s very simple,” he said. “(The pilot) should check both the rear tank and the front tank within the first two hours, because if you have an issue with something, you can turn around to the mainland. This pilot didn’t check the rear tank and did something else to make the fuel come out. He did a mistake.”

As the SR22 is sitting at the bottom of the Pacific, I am not sure why he’s quite so sure. The pilot says he did check; he transferred fuel from both tanks successfully at about 200 miles out. The NTSB’s conclusion is basically a shrug:

The pilot’s inability to transfer fuel from the aft auxiliary fuel tank to the main fuel tanks for reasons that could not be determined because the airplane was ditched and not recovered.

The Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue System (AMVER) recognises outstanding rescues at sea with an award presented annually at a ceremony in the US Capitol building in Washington DC. In 2016, Veendam’s captain and crew received this award for this rescue.

This was actually the third rescue at sea by a Holland America ship in January 2015: Zuiderdam _rescued eight from a sinking vessel in the Caribbean and _Zaandam aided seven stranded crew at a Polish research station in Antarctica.

This was the 51st successful Cirrus parachute deployment. I have to admit, I love the image of the pilot at 10,000 feet over the Pacific, cutting fuel lines with a knife and pouring avgas from a sports drink bottle. Probably less romantic to actually be in that position, of course, but a happy ending all around.