Lidle Crash: What Went Wrong?

Filed in archive on October 12, 2006

The unfortunate plane crash that killed New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle has raised many questions about the type of airplane he was flying. They're asking why, since the Cirrus SR20 has a parachute designed to lower the entire plane safely, wasn't the chute deployed when Lidle realized there was a problem?

Airliners.net has stats on the plane:

The SR-20 features composite construction, advanced avionics including a large colour multifunction display, side mounted control yokes and a 150kW (200hp) Teledyne Continental IO-360 flat six piston engine with a single lever operating both mixture and throttle.
The SR-20 will also be fitted standard with a Ballistic Recovery System (BRS) parachute (a first for a certificated production aircraft), while various energy absorbing features have been designed into the airframe to reduce deceleration loads and increase its ability to absorb energy in the event of an impact.

It's too soon to make conclusions about the crash. And we may have to accept that we'll never know exactly what happened.