it appeared to be the pilot’s fault 
I saw this story the other day… seemed strange to be flying so low that you can easily clip the water when you’re looking for a houseboat.
maybe i’m crazy, but where in the article did it say it was a cirrus?
Sorry - double post when the forums had technical difficulties today.
That article doesn’t, but other articles (like THIS ONE) do.
The “Aftermath” column of the March issue of FLYING magazine details a bizarre Cirrus crash in which the plane had avionics problems. It mentioned that the PFD in the plane had been replaced two or maybe three times before the crash. The instrument rated pilot was current and had practiced partial panel with an instructor a few weeks before the crash. It’s an interesting read.
Just read the article in FLYING. You are right, very good read and it does seem to be pretty bizarre.
Have they met their emoticons quota for the week?
There’s going to be some great unknowns come to light as more and more GA aircraft come equipped with glass panels. I own an SR22 and glass panel flying is fantastic. The questions will arise on when the pilot’s scan is able to detect equipment failure and move over to the standby instruments in time to prevent an accident. We’ve been trained as such, but an avionics failure on a glass panel system will become more common since all of the manufacturers now sell their aircraft so equipped. Failure of primary instruments in IFR has always been a killer. Having a glass panel failure doesn’t make the emergency any easier to recover from. In fact, it may make it even harder if the pilot has gotten used to ignore potential problems because there is no vac pump to fail.
If you scan the NTSB site for Cirrus accidents, you’ll find very few accidents caused by equipment or structural problems. Like all of GA, pilot error and training are mostly to blame. Such as the accident starting this post. Water skimming in any non-sea plane is just asking for trouble. You can’t blame Cirrus for this one…