Now here’s something you don’t see everyday…
A pilot flying from mainland USA to Australia, via Hawaii, ditched a single engine plane into the Pacific Ocean on Monday after he was forced to open up the aircraft’s ‘whole-plane parachute’.
According to The Atlantic, the plane, which was a Cirrus SR-22, was being ferried to a customer from the US to Australia and was due to make a scheduled fuel stop in Hawaii, but a fault in the plane’s tanks forced the pilot to ditch the plane early.
After flying as close to a passing cruise ship as possible, the pilot deployed the plane’s whole-plane parachute, which landed the craft in the ocean. Amazingly, the pilot didn’t suffer any major injuries.
That’s right, his small plane was packing a massive parachute for just this kind of occasion. How cool is that?
A US Coast Guard C-130 managed to capture the incident as it unfolded…
Video via Associated Press – YouTube
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