ALMOST two weeks after a Cirrus SR22 crash landed in the back garden in Hatherley, Cheltenham, Steven Impey took to the skies to fly its sister plane.
SOARING at 2,000ft above Gloucestershire, houses look like specks of sand surrounded by green oceans.
The views are spectacular and, in the distance, you can make out the Bristol Channel glistening under the sun.
But at about 10.45am on June 6, as a pilot engaged a parachute to guide his plane to safety, the skies over Cheltenham were thick with cloud cover and the town completely out of view.
Only the onboard navigation system could show him his way. The fact that he avoided crashing into a house was down to pure luck. But the fact that he survived was not.
The Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) is situated just above the pilot's seat as a hidden red toggle.
In an emergency, it must be pulled within two seconds to save the one-ton plane from plummeting uncontrollably.
Mo Nejad, director of Staverton's Clifton Aviation – one of only two Cirrus training stations in the UK – took me on my maiden flying lesson.
"If the aircraft cannot be landed and it's out of your control, you need to deploy the parachute," he told me.
"It's a life saver. Gravity loves you and wants to hug you and, the longer you wait, the faster you will fall."
"You have to think where you are going to fall," continued Mr Nejad.
"That's the hardest part if you are falling. Unfortunately, the runway at Staverton is in line with Cheltenham.
"But, whoever is using the instruments isn't in sight of the ground (if the weather is poor).
"Traditionally, most of the aircraft have 1960s design.
"The Cirrus aircraft is the most up to date and, importantly, everything in the craft has to be certified and approved.
"But that costs a lot of money and that is why, unfortunately, people don't want to make changes.
"Flying should always come down to safety and what Cirrus has done with its parachute is change the way safety works by giving the pilot another option. It's a bit like an airbag in a car. It's revolutionary."
Until air crash investigators publish a final report in the coming months, nobody can be entirely sure what happened over Cheltenham.
"Somebody was probably looking after him," Mr Nejad said.
"They must've sent down an angel down to help him.
"Human nature is the biggest complacency in flying.
Once we have been given something nice, we abuse it. For instance, because you've got these new instruments, people will take more chances.
"What we do is make sure the pilot is aware of the dangers but we can only do so much."
