Bob CollinsA Cirrus plane got itself in trouble in the skies over Australia on Saturday.
So the pilot pulled the parachute on board and we got a rare view of a plane parachuting to earth, the Duluth News Tribune reports.
Eyewitness Amy Davis told the News Tribune that she and her boyfriend were walking to a lookout in the Blue Mountains on Saturday when they saw the plane descend.
“On our way back we heard a light plane overhead, then we heard a really loud, strange noise and looked over to see that a parachute had been deployed above the plane and it was slowly and quietly drifting down towards the town of Lawson,” Davis, who took photos of the plane, recounted in an e-mail. “We didn’t really know what was going on; it’s not something you see every day, a plane with a parachute above it falling slowly to the ground.”
There was no official word on what caused the mishap; eyewitness Greg Howlett told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that “the motor just cut out. The engine just stopped.”
The parachutes are made by Ballistic Recovery Systems at South St. Paul’s Fleming Field.
