When the engine in Matt Lehtinen’s plane started hemorrhaging oil and losing power, he was in just about the worst possible place, over the densely forested wilderness of Quebec with nowhere to make a forced landing. Nowhere where the chances of surviving the landing were very good, anyway.
Lehtinen was flying a Cirrus SR22, though, and he did what he’d been trained to do. He pulled the whole airplane recovery parachute, and his plane descended under chute into the forest, where it crashed through the tall trees and luckily made its way to the forest floor. There, unhurt, the pilot lit a small, smoky fire to attract attention. He was picked up by Canadian rescuers five hours later.
And to document the accident, he made this video, something that most pilots in his position would not have been able to do, for obvious reasons.
The Youtube video begins with footage of the SR22 coming under chute. Those images were captured by a Canadian search and rescue C-130 that was shadowing Lehtinen as his plane lost power.
It’s an incredible story, and an incredible testimony to the chute.
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