BRS Aerospace saves 400th and 401st lives.

[Doug Robertson]

BRS Aerospace of Minnesota is the supplier of the Ballistic Recovery System on each production Cirrus Aircraft, also of Minnesota, and is partly owned by Cirrus.
BRS Aerospace recently announced saving the 400th and 401st human life by the deploying of their whole aircraft parachute system over the Atlantic Ocean on March 5, 2019 when the Cirrus pilot deployed the system some 20 miles from Grand Turk Island in the Turks and Caicos off the Dominican Republic. No injuries were reported by the pilot and passenger. A cruise ship picked them up.

The BRS is deployed in a life-threatening situation by a rocket to slow the aircraft in the airstream and lower it and its occupants in a measured descent. The parachute and its solid propellant ballistic rocket are enclosed in a canister mounted within the aircraft.

More than 30,000 BRSs have been installed over the past 35 years on aircraft including experimental aircraft, certified aircraft and military trainers. About 1 in every 120 installed BRSs has been activated successfully as a "last resort" in lethal situations. The latest BRS-deployed aircraft? It is probably "toast" in the salt water ocean.