This time right here in Pocatello, a few miles from the tower. I saw the vid and would bet it goes national at some point. It shows the Cirrus (?) being drug along a farm field by the chute, until the chute gets caught up in a power line, then the chute BREAKS THE POWER POLE OFF! Sparks fly....but finally the chute is done demonstrating it's power. Only then did the account I saw this AM mention that the pilot and passenger had already got out. I could not find a way to directly link to the vid, but here's a link to the TV station that showed it, and if you wade through all the other BS it will be in there as something like "Fort Hall plane crash" or words to that effect.

http://www.kpvi.com/content/news/local/default.aspx

Right in the middle of posting this, I realized this may be a crane job for me..... so I called the local FBO and left a message that if they need a crane to lift the plane, they had better use a crane service with a licensed pilot as the crane operator Ha ha, but I really do have the right rig, and the right rigging, for that job, we'll see what happens.

That is one big parachute. That must have been an exciting ride down in that wind.

I guess the pilot didn't think about cutting the chute loose to save aircraft and other damage! Perhaps they didn't carry a pocket knife?

I presume it landed wheels down. They could get out easy then. Can you imagine being inside and getting dragged when it went inverted. that would be no fun.
Cutting the chords would have saved needless damage to the plane. That in its self would be a dangerous job considering how windy it was.
You just might get run over by the plane and injured attempting to do so. Still it would be real hard for me to stand by and watch my plane get dragged.
Humm....I have the urge...to go out into the shop and sharpen my knife

Well I crapped out. I called out to the FBO and left my message with the phone answerer. 5 minutes later I got a call back from one their A & P's I know and he indicated that I was in like Flint. All was well and it looked like it would be an interesting day. Then I got another call 10 minutes later, and it turns out that sometime in the early morning the Tribal Police had the made a call to a local tow truck service to remove it. This was against the wishes of the insurance company, who was on board with the plan to have an A & P and a certified crane operator who's also a pilot do the lift. Obviously the wrecker driver was more qualified. Man that poor airplane just can't catch a break! First getting beat up by the chute and then treated like a broke down Kia or something. Knowing what we know about the media's fascination of all things involving small plane wrecks, it will be interesting to see tonight if the major networks use that video.

The irony here is the last plane to go down in that area, and deal with the Tribal Police, was a local pilot out of Inkom, in some kind of homebuilt airplane. He claimed there was too much air in the fuel tanks, but landed it with zero damage, and took off the next day once some air was displaced by more fuel. Too bad he didn't have a chute!? He remembers one of the Indian cops asking him if he wanted to talk to the media, which he held off about 1000' away, told NO, he shooed them away. A good dude! The next days paper had a grainy picture of a perfectly normal airplane sitting up right in a field (too far away for the N#'s to be read), and the text read "the pilot and his passenger were unharmed, and unidentified".

Yeah, we had the local gendarmes do that here with a 185 that went swimming a number of years ago. Airplane was intact and our local IA (and recovery expert) went over there to help extract it from the lake in one piece. But was shoo'd away (okay.... and a local crane brought in. The guy ripped it out of the water and totally destroyed it... argh...

Same thing almost happened with a blub blubbed Carbon Cub. Fortunately the guys in the water helping salvage it were some of the wealthiest and most influential in the county. When the water patrol cop kids tried to interfere and treat it as a "crime scene" (good grief), they were threatened with the Sheriff being called. They backed off and became very helpful after that. (and in the end got a good education on what to do in these circumstances regarding the care of aircraft recovery from water...

It's a moot point when the chute is pulled. The airframe is damaged beyond repair in the eyes of Cirrus, and they won't issue repair data. Only the engine and avionics are salvageable.

nkh

A few years ago here in the Texas panhandle a poor pilot in a small two seater, Kitfox I think, pulled his airframe chute when he had engine trouble. It was a very windy day and the parachute drug the plane almost one mile across T Boone Pickens ranch. Plane apparently landed ok, but pilot was killed when he tried to get out of plane as it was drug across the prairie.

That's what my buddy was wondering about... Wheels up, slide it on into the wind, and .... Guess u gotta be sitting in it to make the right call. Glad it's just bent cirrus and power lines.

Got to love that southern Idaho wind!

Oh, and another great example of news media in the anchors last words. It's not clear if the chute was deployed before or after the plane was on the ground. I'm sure under some combination of variables a chute could be accidentally discharged, but I would think that is pretty unlikely.