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Cirrus Examined: Just Average for Safety

When Cirrus kicked open the barroom doors in 1999 with an innovative new airplane equipped with a parachute, it promised to turn the page on light aircraft safety. In our initial report on the Cirrus SR20, we deemed it “one of the most crashworthy airplanes in GA history.” A dozen years hence, does the accident history support the expectations? Has Cirrus delivered what many buyers hoped it would? And while we’re at it, how does it compare to other models? Which have the best accident rates, which the worst?

Paul Bertorelli
Verified

When Cirrus kicked open the barroom doors in 1999 with an innovative new airplane equipped with a parachute, it promised to turn the page on light aircraft safety. In our initial report on the Cirrus SR20, we deemed it “one of the most crashworthy airplanes in GA history.”

A dozen years hence, does the accident history support the expectations? Has Cirrus delivered what many buyers hoped it would? And while we’re at it, how does it compare to other models? Which have the best accident rates, which the worst?

Paul Bertorelli

Paul Bertorelli is Aviation Consumer’s Editor at Large. In addition to his valued contributions to Aviation Consumer, his in-depth video productions on sister publication AVweb cover a wide variety of topics that greatly contribute to safety, operation and aircraft ownership. When Paul isn’t writing or filming, he’s out flying his J3 Cub.