How a bulletproof parachute saved a family of three after plane lost power

An extraordinary video of a four-seater plane in the US gliding down to safety under a massive parachute left viewers awed last week.

The plane, carrying Artem Konokuk, 38, his partner, also 38 and their two-year-old daughter, landed in a tree in a forest in Whitehorn, California on March 8 after the aircraft lost power and the whole-plane parachute was deployed.

Despite the plane suffering massive damage in the crash, the family – from Nevada – survived with just light cuts and bruises and managed to climb down from the tree to safety.

The captain of the nearby Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office described their survival and lack of serious injuries as ‘a miracle.’

Parachutes are generally known for carrying people not entire planes, so the extraordinary footage has left many people asking how exactly the device works.

In this case, the plane involved in the Californian crash, a 20-year-old Cirrus SR22, was fitted with a Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS).

The parachute itself is made of the bulletproof material Kevlar, reports the MailOnline, which is strong enough to carry an entire single-engine craft down to earth.

The four-seater plane being lowered to the ground by its parachute (Picture: Instagram/Shelter Cover Fire)

During an emergency the pilot or co-pilot will pull a lever, which initiates a rocket motor powered by solid-state chemical fuel.

This motor launches the parachute backwards and at speed from the top of the plane, where it is stored in a concealed apartment.

The 64 parachute canopy then opens within seconds.

According to Cirrus Aircraft’s safety literature, the parachute can reduce the aircraft’s forward velocity to zero in just eight seconds.

Components in CAPS known as ‘reefing line cutters’ help bring the aircraft to a level position and makes sure the passengers are the ‘right side-up’ for a safer crash landing.

The plane upside down in the aftermath of the crash (Picture: Instagram/Shelter Cover Fire)

The Cirrus Airframe Parachute System is fired out from a compartment at the top of the plane

As of March last year, Cirrus’s parachute system had apparently saved 253 people since it was launched in the 1990s.

The Konokuk family were just five minutes into their 170-mile journey down the coast to Santa Rosa when the aircraft’s only engine cut out on March 15.

The pilot noticed the plane’s altitude was too low for a recover, according to the sheriff’s office.

‘At this point, the pilot deployed the airplane’s Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) which slowed the airplane’s decent,’ they said in a press release.

‘The parachute carried the airplane until it ultimately crashed into trees in a heavily wooded area of Yellow Road in Whitethorn, CA,’ it said.

The parachute system helped slow the family’s crash-landing down significantly (Picture: Instagram/Shelter Cover Fire)

The family managed to get down from the plane, which was precariously balancing on branches, without it falling on top of them.

Rescuers scrambled through the forest and found the trio on the ground seeing to their injuries, with the crumpled 2,200-pound aircraft by that time lying upside own beside them.

The tail had was completely detached from the body of the plane and the parachute was still in the tree canopy above.

Dozens of people living in the area reported the crash to police and some posted on social media.

A diagram shows the different parts of the plane’s parachute system

The aircraft came down in a heavily wooded area in California (Picture: Instagram/Shelter Cover Fire)

Amy Arnesen McOmber, wrote on Facebook: ‘This happened right behind my parents home, like 75 yards away!’

‘The plane crashed by itself into the green belt behind their house we used to call the pipeline trail.’

Earlier this month, several people died after a plane crashed into a fireball on a motorway in the US city of Nashville, Tennessee.

Footage from CCTV cameras shows the single-engine aircraft plummeting to the ground just off of Interstate 40 in the western part of the city.

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