I’d say that an AAD fire makes for an unintentionally exciting skydive… especially if you’re a novice wingsuiter on WS jump #16! He couldn’t deploy his main canopy, lost control in a flat spin, blanked out on emergency procedures and didn’t pull his reserve. The end result was an AAD fire and line twists on his reserve. *Gulp*
This individual was the first to admit that, while inexperienced and jumping brand new gear, he didn’t go through some fairly basic steps like doing practice pulls. Consequently, when it came time to deploy he wasn’t familiar with how to access/reach the freefly pud.
The jumper also admits that, once he failed to deploy and put himself into a dive, he completely blanked on his EP’s, and forgot to go to his reserve. He also appears to have lost all altitude awareness and burned through his hard deck so badly his AAD fired.
This skydiver ended his submission by noting that his rig is now equipped with a hackie rather than a freefly pud. We’re not going to debate whether a hackie is superior to a freefly pud or anything like that. We will say, however, that before you get out of a plane with a new piece of gear on you should try to know how it’s going to affect your jump. Only after a scary incident did this jumper realize that the freefly pud was not for him. It’s something he could have probably figured out on the ground.
This jumper failed to maintain altitude awareness, didn’t realize he was at his hard deck, and forgot to go to reserve after two attempts at deploying a main. All of these items are covered on the first day of AFF! Just because you’re trying a new discipline doesn’t mean that the basic safety precautions you’ve been taught as a skydiver get tossed out the window.
This was a fluke accident that involved a snagged smoke canister on a ninja jump with very experienced skydivers. On exit, the metal edge of the smoke canister mounted to this jumper's foot caught on his buddy’s container. Fortunately, the cord used to ignite the smoke snapped… because this jumper was using military-grade hot smoke, which could have made things a lot worse had it ignited.
For the most part, this incident happened simply because there were a lot of people rubbing up on each other on exit -- and not the good kind of rubbing 😉 They were packing a lot of people both inside and outside the door and that type of cramped space leads to close contact. It drastically increases the chances of one person’s gear catching on someone else’s. Even if this wasn’t a smoke jump it could have been something else that snagged, like a camera.
Most jumpers are cognizant about the every-day snag hazards that they encounter while skydiving. The edges of the door in a plane, exposed bolts on helicopter skids, cameras, etc. In this case, however, these jumpers were using a piece of equipment that most jumpers don’t utilize on a regular basis: smoke canisters and brackets. Not using smoke brackets regularly may have contributed to a lack of situational awareness regarding their potential as a snag hazard. To their credit, they stated they'd gone through a briefing regarding these dangers and attempted to put tape over potential snag points. At the end of the day, there’s no way to completely eliminate these risks.
We note in this video that the smoke canister which snagged on the other jumper’s rig did not fire due to the cord having broken. They were using a cord rated to break at 80 lbs but it appears to – fortunately – have snapped with far less weight applied to it. We say fortunately because they were using hot smoke which, at that proximity to the other jumper’s rig, could have caused some serious damage. Many jumpers prefer hot smoke because it is thicker, brighter, and simply looks better but it is important to be aware of the inherent risks of using it versus a colder burning smoke.
Also, we want to give a big shout out to Jesse Weyher for sharing this video with us so others can learn from this incident. Follow him on Instragram -- he's a pretty badass skydiver, competitive swooper and all-around awesome dude. He also loves burritos and long walks on the beach.
In the submission that came with this video, this jumper was referred to both as a “newly graduated student” and a “student.” He was somewhat unstable and when he went to deploy his pilot chute he rolled over, entangling himself with his pilot chute. Fortunately, when his deployment bag finally left his container, the pilot chute cleared his limbs and didn’t result in an injury. The main was not flyable so the jumper followed his emergency procedures, cut away, and landed safely on his reserve.
Throughout this whole jump, this jumper was wobbling a little (not too badly) and was noticeably turning clockwise. When he finally deployed his main, that turn got worse, he de-arched and rolled over.
The three pull priorities are to pull, to pull at the right altitude, and to pull at the right altitude while stable. It looks like this jumper still had plenty of altitude but forgot about taking a moment to get stable before pulling.
As previously noted, this jumper was having a pretty hard time maintaining stability and controlling heading. Based on the notes provided with this video submission, it sounds like he was cleared for solo and coach jumps but was not yet an A-license holder. If that was the case, this individual may have been allowed to progress a little too quickly given that “unassisted freefall with heading maintenance” is a learning and performance objective for AFF Category C jumps.
Newer skydivers often don’t realize how much a jumpsuit helps with body flight. While borrowing a jumpsuit from the DZ isn’t the most fashionable decision, it’s a really good option for students and folks who are still learning.
This short video came with a single sentence stated in the submission notes, “At the time pull another skydiver passed the parachute.” That’s a pretty succinct and accurate summary! We would also note that the jumper whose camera view we’re watching appears to be opening directly under another canopy.
Unfortunately, we know very little about the events leading up to this incident. There are a few possibilities:
-- If these jumpers were on a skydive together, they may have done a poor job tracking away at break-off; they may have been off-level from one another and lost awareness of where everyone was; they may not have cleared their airspace, etc.
-- If the jumper who falls past the canopies was in a different group, he may have moved up jump run and entered the other group’s airspace. There is also a possibility that he may not have given proper exit separation.
When jumping in a group, everyone needs to ensure they are aware of where the other jumpers are, that they don’t fly over other jumpers at deployment altitude, that they track away properly at break-off, and that they clear their airspace before deploying.
Before boarding a plane, jumpers should be aware of the direction that jump run is flying. When in freefall, they should ensure that any movement -- including tracking away at break-off -- is perpendicular to jump run to avoid encroaching into the airspace of another group. Jumpers should also ensure that they don’t rush the exit count. Counting out loud and/or counting with your fingers can help prevent a fast-count.
On the final day of a big way camp that had experienced some weather holds, a dive plan was changed due to a missing jumper but then changed back when the individual showed up at the final dirt dive on the 15-minute call. On the jump, the sectors begin to build but the individual who showed up late was seen flying around looking for their spot. At break-off the individual misses their tracking group’s departure from the main group. They attempted to compensate by “catching up” to their group and turned into a meat missile. They impacted the tracking leader in the lower back, resulting in two dislocated discs.
Because the camp had experienced multiple weather days, the organizer decided to allow the jumper who had missed the earlier dirt dives to join in. Accommodating them necessitated a last second change and may not have provided the jumper adequate time to prepare for the jump.
The late jumper, who never made it into their slot during the jump, may have gotten tunnel vision about getting to their tracking group. To reach the group, they appear to have forgotten about safety, miscalculated their speed and trajectory, and took someone out.
This organizer decided to accommodate a jumper who showed up late but, in doing so, they allowed someone onto the jump who did not have the time to thoroughly go through the dirt dives with everyone else. The safer choice may have been to tell the jumper that it was too late to add them to the jump.
The jumper in question could have avoided the situation by choosing to take themselves off the jump. Showing up late and still trying to get on the load put the organizer in an uncomfortable position.
Level-Slot-Dock is a basic tenet of all forms of skydiving and it applies to tracking. This jumper looks to have come across half the sky, joining the tracking group perpendicularly and without control of their speed. Alternatively, once this jumper realized they were not in the right position they could have broken off early and tracked away from the group.
This was a three-way jump with some inexperienced skydivers who were off-level and lost track of each other in the sky, which resulted in a very close call as the camera flyer skimmed past an opening canopy in freefall.
During this three-way belly jump, the third jumper sunk out and the second jumper wasn’t going to him. So – ostensibly in order to make him get on level with the low man – the jumper with the camera decided he “would introduce him to a fruit loop.” The jumpers were not able to get back together, lost track of one another, and the individual who had been “fruit-looped” opened below the camera-flyer.
These three were not able to stay on level and were not able to stay in proximity to one another. Effectively, they were spread halfway across the sky both laterally and vertically. They did not have the body flight skills (that should be) required for them to jump together.
“Fruit-looping” someone to get them on level is simply a bad decision. An jumper who's unable to control their body well enough to get to someone lower is unlikely to have the skills or experience needed to recover from a surprise unstable maneuver and get over to the group. The more likely outcome will be disorientation.
For newer jumpers who are unfamiliar with the term, a “fruit-loop” is when during a belly two-way one jumper takes the other’s hands, unexpectedly punches into a sit or a stand, and lets go. When properly executed, the maneuver throws the second jumper across the sky in an unstable tumble. It can be fun and silly but, as seen in this video, it can also disorient jumpers and should only be done under controlled circumstances.
Newer jumpers (and some more experienced ones) need to realize that combining their lack of skill with the lack of skill of other jumpers, can be a dangerous mix. In this case it appears that none of these jumpers were able to stay on level with one another or stay near one another; an honest self-assessment would have told them that they probably shouldn’t be doing a three-way together.
If the jumpers themselves aren’t realizing that they’re making poor decisions then more experienced jumpers, instructors, coaches, and dropzone staff should be asking questions and helping the newer individuals stay safe.
Presumably the camera-flyer had at least 200 jumps. Their inability to stay situationally aware and their failure to get on level with the other jumpers after their “fruit loop” of the second jumper, calls into question their belly-flying skills. This is, unfortunately, a more and more common occurrence as skydivers seek to jump from AFF directly into free-flying with the cool kids.
Have you ever seen 7 “malfunctions” in a single tandem jump?! The person who submitted this video noted: a malfunction with the student’s goggles, a hard opening, a line over, a tension knot, spinning line twists on their back, a hard pull on their cutaway handle requiring a two-handed pull, line twists on their reserve, and a partridge in a pear tree! (Okay… maybe not that last one.)
The combination of the hard opening and the line over suggest that this was almost certainly a packing issue. An experienced tandem instructor who reviewed this video responded by stating, "100% packing… That’s a lazy pro-packed canopy with the top skin laying on the ground..." And everything that happened after that moment (except for the goggle issue) can come back to the packing-related issues on deployment.
We’ve said it before, and until self-packing canopies become a thing, we’ll keep saying it until we’re blue in the face: packing needs to be taken seriously and attention to detail at every step is critical. Too often jumpers and packers get rushed to make a load happen or we get distracted because we’re packing while talking to our friends or flirting with that really cute tandem student. When you’re packing, focus on packing!
One rigger who viewed this video noted that a hard pull on a cutaway could suggest that the gear wasn’t being maintained at the proper level. He showed us a few photos of filthy nasty cutaway cables that have come through his loft and after viewing those snapshots we have no doubts that gear which was not properly cared for could have been a factor in the hard pull here.
This relatively inexperienced jumper asked a rigger to connect her canopy. Later that day she completed a few jumps, and then on her last one for the day she turned, tracked, and pitched. As her main deployed she immediately noticed that one of her risers was not connected so she followed her emergency procedures, cut away, and landed safely on her reserve canopy.
This jumper had given her canopy over to a rigger for assembly and they did not connect the slinks properly. After the canopy was recovered, it was confirmed by a master rigger that all four slinks were incorrectly routed/connected. The jumper had already put multiple jumps on the canopy before this incident finally -- and inevitably -- happened.
This was a newer jumper and, realistically, most newer jumpers don’t know how to connect a canopy. Most jumpers simply pack their main and handle minor issues; for everything else they trust a licensed rigger. She had no idea how to inspect her gear after it was given back to her and didn’t catch a major mistake.
This rigger screwed up. This is a serious mistake that should not have happened. The consequences were just a cutaway and a very scary few minutes, but they could have been a lot more serious; consider what could have happened had this slink given out as the jumper was turning onto final. Being a rigger is a serious job and those doing it need to be infinitely more diligent about checking their work and protecting the jumpers who trust them with their lives.
This is an inherently dangerous sport and jumpers are morally obligated to keep one another safe. If this rigger had a history of questionable performance, and no one said anything, anyone who stayed quiet shared some responsibility for this incident. Jumpers need to take care of one another, and part of that obligation is having the guts to go up to someone and tell them that they screwed up and need to own it. Or, if they’re not getting the message, going to the powers that be whether that be an S&TA, a DZO, USPA, or the FAA.
We already noted that many jumpers don’t know enough about their rigs to check the work of a rigger. But they should always be attempting to learn more. If you’re friends with your rigger, check if you can watch them work on your gear, ask questions, and keep trying to expand your knowledge base. Further, never trust anyone else implicitly, double check anyone’s work when you can. That includes making sure that your packers cocked your pilot chute, didn’t use a worn-out closing loop, and seated your pin all the way.
Props to this newer jumper for instantly recognizing that this was a situation that needed an immediate cutaway. She was screaming but her training kicked in within half a second. She not only cutaway, but she reached across with both hands to do so. Some observers pointed out that, having shorter arms, she may have also wanted to swipe any remaining cable… but given that she pulled it out so far that she was able to drop it we think she did a damn good job. Credit also goes to her instructors who evidently drilled her EP’s in pretty well.
Track farther and do the "waving off" thing. Given the rest of this video, those are pretty minor observations, but we figured we'd throw them in there before someone else does.
Before anyone asks: No. We don’t know who this rigger is. And even if we did, we wouldn’t post their name or refer them to the powers that be. Teem is here to spread knowledge that can keep skydivers safe. To a certain degree, we're journalists and we have an ethical obligation to keep sources private and not dox people. If we violate that trust, no one will want to share their stories and this fantastic system of sharing lessons learned will fall apart. That does not, however, contradict our earlier note where we stated that jumpers need to protect one another by coming forward about unsafe practices.
After a “very chill solo jump," this skydiver had a stable deployment which they initially thought was fine, until it started spinning up on them. They weren’t sure what the malfunction was, tried to clear it by pulling on the risers, but then cutaway because they could feel the G’s increasing and were concerned about blacking out. Their RSL deployed their reserve before they got to their handle and they landed safely. They noted it was their first cutaway… we all know what that means!
The jumper wasn’t sure what happened, but it appears to be a line over. As for why it happened, it’s hard to tell. Most of the time, line overs happen because of body position or packing errors. This jumper appears to be stable on deployment so it’s more likely that something happened during the packing process, for example, a line could have gone over the nose while they were rolling their canopy.
It’s been said a million times before but it’s something that jumpers always need to be reminded of: never get complacent. Attention to detail is critical on every pack job. Every step needs to be taken meticulously without rushing and without getting distracted. Too often jumpers are trying to catch the next load or chatting with friends while going through the motions, and that’s when mistakes happen that can cause a serious malfunction.
This appears to have been a newer jumper and it should be stated that they did a pretty good job remembering their EP’s and cutting away immediately after they decided that they would not be able to safely fly their main. One item to add, however, is that their attempt to clear the issue by pulling on the risers was going to be ineffective because it doesn’t create any slack on the line causing the issue. In this situation, one remedy which can help is pulling hard on the brake line to almost collapse the canopy, which can create enough slack to clear the line causing the issue.
