This tandem instructor tossed his drogue, and a moment later, he had a premature deployment of his main! (Surprise!) The deployment bag wrapped itself around the drogue, but then the main — miraculously — deployed cleanly! The instructor and his student landed successfully.
All we were told about this incident was, “Неправильное застегивание рюкзака,” which arguably translates to, "Incorrect fastening of the backpack.” We don’t really know what that means, and the riggers we asked were hard-pressed to even say what brand of container it was, let alone why this happened.
This is pure conjecture… BUT, knowing how tandem operations go… there is definitely a chance that this instructor was turning loads — landing with one student, disconnecting them, running to the hangar to grab another rig and another student, and getting right back on a plane that he had chased down. That may have led to him rushing off to the plane without bothering with gear checks.
Again, we don’t really know what happened and are just spitballing here, but if the issue was that the instructor was turning loads and didn’t check his equipment, then the solution is pretty obvious: slow down and make sure that the equipment you are trusting with your life — and the life of your student — is good to go!
This tandem instructor tossed his drogue, and a moment later, he had a premature deployment of his main! (Surprise!) The deployment bag wrapped itself around the drogue, but then the main — miraculously — deployed cleanly! The instructor and his student landed successfully.
All we were told about this incident was, “Неправильное застегивание рюкзака,” which arguably translates to, "Incorrect fastening of the backpack.” We don’t really know what that means, and the riggers we asked were hard-pressed to even say what brand of container it was, let alone why this happened.
This is pure conjecture… BUT, knowing how tandem operations go… there is definitely a chance that this instructor was turning loads — landing with one student, disconnecting them, running to the hangar to grab another rig and another student, and getting right back on a plane that he had chased down. That may have led to him rushing off to the plane without bothering with gear checks.
Again, we don’t really know what happened and are just spitballing here, but if the issue was that the instructor was turning loads and didn’t check his equipment, then the solution is pretty obvious: slow down and make sure that the equipment you are trusting with your life — and the life of your student — is good to go!
