As this group of skydivers was setting up in the door for a sit train exit, one of the jumpers had their pilot chute dislodged and it caught wind! Luckily the jumper at the front of the group instinctively grabbed the pilot chute whizzing by his head and they all got back in the plane without a premature opening. Nice catch!
Due to some miscommunication, these skydivers exited in the wrong order to get set up in the door. The jumper in the front/prop position consequently had to squeeze by the jumper in the center of the door.
The third jumper getting out rubs their whole body against the other jumper’s BOC. (If you want to get that intimate, get a room!) It almost looks like they’re trying to get the center jumper to move towards the prop. They snagged the BOC and pilot chute: no bueno.
A few relatively simple things could have prevented this scary-ass situation from happening:
This is actually a super scary situation because had that pilot chute kept going it could have easily yanked the jumper out, slammed them into the other jumpers, wrapped on the rear stabilizer of the plane, and led to a REALLY bad day with jumpers breaking themselves on planes, planes crashing, and other catastrophic scenarios. Did I already say “no bueno?”
A skydiver finds herself in a bad situation, fighting for her life after an incomplete cutaway that didn’t detach from one of the risers on the main canopy. As she spins uncontrollably, she deploys her reserve parachute just to get more fabric above her head, which ends up detaching the main parachute. But wait… there’s more: reserve line twists! Caution: she screams. A lot. Consider turning down the volume before you watch this one 🙂
The jumper didn’t tell us what the initial malfunction was, so who knows what happened. We do, however, clearly see the incomplete cutaway. There are a few possibilities about why the second riser didn’t detach:
In all three cases, when the jumper pulled her reserve handle to get more fabric above her head, the opening shock of the reserve appears to have resolved the issue.
Equipment maintenance and checks are a potential remedy. Had this jumper, and their rigger, done a thorough job examining the gear they should have caught cable length issues, misrouted cables, etc. When buying gear examine it to ensure that the cables are cut to the lengths to manufacturer specifications, this ensures both risers detach simultaneously. An incomplete pull could have been prevented by practicing emergency procedures. Jumpers should be in the habit of pulling their handles all the way out. If possible, jumpers should practice their EP’s in a hanging harness during Safety Day or when they bring in their reserve for a repack.
We talk about how different people have different solutions for line twists but the frantic kicking (and screaming) seen in this video are a decent example of why many people would suggest that a better option may be reaching up, grabbing the risers, and bringing them together to get the twists lower. The screaming and bicycle kicking method ultimately worked for this jumper, but it was certainly a scary situation.
These jumpers were doing a five-way wingsuit formation. Four had previously jumped together but the jumper in the red wingsuit was new to the group. Upon exit, the jumper in the red sunk out and lost sight of the group; the group also lost sight of him. The jumper flared in an attempt to get back to the formation and, consequently, almost caused a collision with a jumper in the group.
When the jumper in red sunk out, he chose to flare and come back up. This placed him almost at a stall speed while the rest of the group was at full flight. The speed difference was so high that the jumper leading the group stated:
We passed him so fast, I honestly thought he was flying in the opposite direction.”
This is arguably the wingsuit equivalent of being head-up or head-down on a vertical jump and deciding to go to belly without knowing if there’s a jumper above you.
The organizer knew that the jumper in red was inexperienced. He says he presumed – because the rest of the group knew what they were doing – that the one inexperienced jumper wouldn’t be an issue.
The jumper did not know exactly where the group was and just slammed on the brakes to pop back up. Establishing visual contact with other jumpers is key before performing any maneuver which could create a collision.
After visually confirming where everyone was, the jumper who went low should have gone out to the side, flared to get back up, then approached the formation from the side or from slightly above and to the side.
The jumper who submitted this video summed up this point pretty well. He said you should never assume that - just because there are more experienced flyers on the load - that everyone knows the correct procedures in dangerous situations. He made that assumption on this jump and it could have ended very badly. If you know someone on a load isn’t quite as ninja as you and your crew, take the time to talk about safety 👍
This jumper deployed their main, saw a malfunction they could not recover from, and cutaway. Their three-rings separated but a line got caught and the main parachute remained connected to the container. While attempting to clear the line entanglement, it appears the jumper pulled on their RSL and extracted their reserve pin; giving them a two-out. The jumper flew the reserve and, twenty seconds before safely landing their reserve, the main finally released.
The initial malfunction is difficult to see but, as their canopy was deploying, a line snagged on the container. This resulted in a malfunction that had to be cutaway. Because of the snagged line, however, the canopy was unable to release. The jumper noted that, prior to this jump, their rigger had patched their container. Without more information it’s difficult to know whether that resulted in this incident. Packing errors could also have caused this issue. One possible example is that a line could have caught on the main closing loop anchor if, while rotating the bag, the line wrapped around it.
Without knowing what caused that line to snag, it’s difficult to know what could have prevented this incident. If it was because of the new patch inside the container, it maybe could have been prevented through a better examination of the work the rigger did. If it was a packing error, it maybe could have been prevented through diligence.
What we do know is that a hook knife would certainly have prevented the jumper from being forced to deal with a trailing ball of @#$% while flying their reserve. Many skydivers think hook knives are just for CRW but this video proves otherwise… plus, you never know when you might wind up on an unintentional CRW jump! 😉
This skydiver set up their final turn passed the main landing area, which put them in a tight spot to land near a parked – and fortunately not running – helicopter. They presumably clipped the tail rotor, or largely forgot to flare (the video submission didn’t clarify what happened), resulting in a hard landing and two compressed vertebrae.
The submission – which was difficult to decipher – suggested that there may have been congestion in the landing pattern. The jumper was possibly trying to avoid other parachutes and could have placed himself into a bad situation where their options were to land by the helicopter, land on the taxiway or turn lower than they were comfortable with.
Regardless of the reason for it, this jumper set themselves up for failure. They were relatively low and already a bit passed their landing area when they did an aggressive front-riser turn which left them at higher speeds with even fewer options.
If this situation was due to congested airspace, the jumper put themselves into a bad situation by getting caught up in it. Early in the canopy flight portion of a jump, skydivers should be looking around and creating vertical and horizontal separation between themselves and others.
This individual was in a less than ideal spot but, instead of doing a nice brake turn towards the landing area, they hopped on their fronts and made a bad situation worse. Jumpers should always be willing to take a boring safe landing rather than a potentially dangerous one. This issue often pops up at dropzones with a lot of high-performance canopies where no one is willing to land anywhere but super close to the hanger. It’s better to have a long walk back than to compress two vertebrae like this guy did!
A skydiver has some heavy line twists on opening, which he fights all the way down to his hard deck before cutting away and deploying his reserve parachute -- which also opens with heavy line twists. Yikes!
It’s hard to tell what caused the initial line twists, but there may have been some instability upon deployment. The main was open around 2,600 feet and had 2 or 3 line twists far up his lines, but within a few seconds there were no less than ten additional twists and the uneven risers resulted in a diving canopy that was burning up altitude rather quickly.
He attempted to clear the lines but cut away at about 1450 feet and he was under his reserve at around 1150 feet. He was using a Skyhook and his reserve was a PD Optimum 126.
Your body position on opening is an important part of a clean deployment. Remember to keep your body level/symmetrical and look straight forward towards the horizon on deployment.
Check out this article by Skydive Mag to learn some great tips from the experienced Flight-1 instructors on how to deal with line twists:
In order to unravel a twist we need rotation. Pulling on risers with twists in the lines does not create any rotation. At worst, if there is any existing offset in the risers then you are potentially pulling asymmetrically on the canopy and may worsen or induce a turn. Pushing the risers together at least takes the tension off the twists to minimize any such input.
Once the line twists started getting worse there was no option other than to cutaway. This jumper took 22 seconds and - more importantly - 1100 feet to attempt to clear a malfunction that was not fixable. He probably had an audible set for a hard deck of 1500 feet and he chopped promptly at that altitude (good job!). But given the depth of those line twists, he should've chopped earlier.
There’s no reason to fight an un-fixable malfunction all the way to your hard deck. Your reserve could snivel, you might have line twists, you could have a malfunction on your reserve, or you might need the altitude to reach a safe off-landing site. Once you’ve realized that your main canopy is not going to get you to the ground safely, don’t screw around and burn altitude. Get rid of it and figure out what’s next.
During this skydive, the jumper was flying in a head-up position with a partially exposed pilot chute. At one point he corked onto his back, the pilot chute caught the air and deployed prematurely. His jump was a bit shorter than he expected but, thankfully, no one was hurt.
The preemie happened because the pilot chute was not fully secured in the container’s BOC. We don’t have video from the start of the jump so it’s hard to tell why it was loose. The biggest possible culprits are the following:
All three possible reasons for this loose pilot chute could have been prevented through very basic tasks. Each of these steps is something all jumpers -- regardless of skill level or jump numbers -- should keep in mind on every jump.
After breaking off and "tracking" away, both of these skydivers had 180-degree off-heading openings which nearly resulted in a mid-air collision. #GoProClose
These jumpers only tracked for about 4 seconds and it appears that they didn’t cover much distance in that time. They opened pretty close to each another and the proximity definitely played a part in this near miss.
The second jumper appears to freeze as she’s coming towards the camera. She sees her partner coming at her but she never moves to grab a riser and turn away.
One of the biggest factors that came into play in this incident is that both jumpers had 180-degree off-heading openings. It’s hard to tell what caused these but most of the time it’s related to body position upon deployment or a packing error.
On a two-way there may be instances where jumpers decide to have one person pull in place and have the other track or there may be instances where there are concerns about tracking into another jump… but had these jumpers tracked further this situation would have likely been avoided. The “Track like everyone is trying to kill you” truism definitely applied here.
Target fixation is a well-known phenomenon in skydiving but it’s typically associated with landings where people stare at an obstacle right up until the second that they slam into it. In this case, the second jumper was staring right at the camera with her hands on her risers… but she never made any inputs. Had she reacted and turned away, these two would not have gotten so close to one another
As noted above, one of these two factors probably caused the off-heading openings. Take your time packing, don't rush, and don't get complacent. And, when deploying, make sure you're in a good stable body position and that you remain symmetric as you pitch.
Some jumpers argue that, while your canopy is deploying, you should let it do its thing and keep your hands off your risers. However, in this scenario, had either one of the jumpers controlled their off-heading opening they could have potentially avoided this close call.
The cameraman did exactly what jumpers are trained to do if they see someone coming at them: turn right to avoid collision. However, in this incident, the other jumper was coming towards him to his right side. His muscle memory almost turned him towards a collision rather than away from one. Sometimes jumpers need to be pragmatic about blindly following their training and, if possible, consider the circumstances before reacting.
This skydiver was jumping a canopy for the first time — a Rage 155 from Flight Concepts. They deployed the main at about 4000 feet and the slider got hung up, resulting in a sniveling canopy that was not inflating. After 18 seconds the jumper finally cut away their main and landed on reserve. We’re guessing they chopped somewhere between 1200 and 1500 feet.
Two things happened on this jump that apply to this question: why did the slider get stuck and why did the jumper take 18 seconds to cut away.
The slider isn’t moving at all and it looks like there’s some fabric popping through one of the grommets. This could have been a packing error, or it could have been an equipment issue.
The jumper appears to have lost altitude awareness, or they forgot their emergency procedures. By 2,500 feet jumpers should make the decision about whether a canopy is landable or not. With the slider not moving at all despite the jumper’s attempt at pulling the risers it was apparent that it would not come down, effectively making the canopy a streamer.
The causes for the slider getting stuck and resulting in a streamer aren’t clear but there are a few different ways that it could have potentially been prevented.
This jumper took this malfunction far too low. We can’t see their altimeter in the video but, based on how high their fellow jumpers are above them, and based on how close the ground is, it’s likely that they were at least 1,000 feet below their decision altitude before they finally decided to cut away. If this was due to a loss of altitude awareness, then it could have been prevented by remembering their deployment sequence, which should include checking canopy size then checking altitude. (Checking size is taught at some dropzones, if the canopy above your head is very small, it’s likely a high speed/total malfunction and needs to be chopped quickly.) Alternatively, the jumper may have forgotten what their decision altitude and hard deck was, and this incident could have been prevented through a regular refresher of emergency procedures — something we should all do regularly.
