Two relatively new skydivers (150 jumps) try several attempts at a Mr. Bill exit from a helicopter at 4500 feet, with each attempt turning out worse than the previous. It's never a good thing when your bridle wraps around a GoPro, arm and/or leg. No bueno.
Have you ever tried a Mr. Bill? If so, how did it go? Let us know in the comments.
Huge thanks to these skydivers for having the courage and humility to share this footage so that others can learn from their mistakes.
A premature opening is never a good thing, especially when you're freeflying at faster speeds. In this case, the premie occurred while sit flying; the d-bag and lines went under his right arm as the parachute deployed, which resulted in muscle hematoma in his bicep as well as injuries to his elbow joint and rotator cuff.
This skydiver admits that he shouldn't have been freeflying with this rig. It was an older container with a worn/loose BOC pouch for the pilot chute, and the closing loop was loose because the main canopy was too small for the container.
You can avoid or reduce your chances of a premature opening by jumping freefly-friendly gear that properly fits your body and your canopy size to ensure you have a tight closing loop and tight BOC for your pilot chute.
Also, when climbing out of the plane, remember to rotate your rig inwards towards the center of the door to avoid rubbing your rig (and your closing pin, in particular) against the door frame.
In the event of a premature opening, a bungee cord on your leg straps might save your life.
For those of you who aren’t aware of the importance of a bungee cord on the leg straps: when sit flying, your leg straps can ride up near your knees. Without a bungee cord connecting the leg straps, this creates a hole you can fall through if there is an upward force on your rig.
While doing a linked exit, a skydiver has a yard sale in the sky — he loses his helmet, GoPro and goggles in freefall, which made for one expensive jump. Another jumper was grabbing the yoke of his rig (at the shoulder), which accidentally released the quick-release buckle on the helmet.
Although it was an expensive lesson for this jumper, it's a good reminder to the rest of us to protect your handles and gear, and be careful where and what you're grabbing on other peoples' gear when doing linked exits.
This skydiver had a snappy premature opening while freeflying, followed by a toggle fire. Not fun. He was flying a demo canopy, which had a smaller pilot chute that was too loose in the BOC. As he went into a stand, the pilot chute caught some air and out it came.
Gear checks, gear checks, gear checks. If your pilot chute is the wrong size or you have a loose BOC, don't jump it — fix it.
A skydiver has a premature opening in the middle of a 14-way formation skydive. Yikes!
It's unclear from the footage exactly what caused the premature opening, but you can see the jumper has an unstable dock and ends up on his back, and the pilot chute was already out of the BOC by the time he flips onto his belly.
Needless to say, this could have been MUCH worse had there been a collision or entanglement with another jumper as premie opened.
Maybe it was a loose BOC, or his hackey got caught on something, or the pilot chute wasn't fully tucked into the BOC and caught some air when he was on his back, or....?
Can you see anything in the footage that I might have missed? Let us know below.
This skydiver had an exciting jump with a partially inflated military paracommander, which resulted in a cutaway with a belly-mounted reserve and an (expected) hard landing.
Thanks to Chuck from Strong Enterprises for pointing out that the ripcord housing on the right riser was in front of the riser prior to releasing the capewells — something Shawn had overlooked.
This skydiver deployed into a line over malfunction that definitely wasn’t flyable... but he couldn’t tell because his visor was fogged up! Once he opened his helmet and realized the serious malfunction above his head, he cut away.
This jumper said it was “shitty packing” — he’s pretty sure a worn out stow band created a messy opening that resulted in a malfunction Doctor Who would have been proud of: “Bow Ties are cool!”
The jumper said they hadn’t cleaned their visor in a while and, consequently, it wound up fogging up to the point where they thought a blatantly obvious line-over was just line twists.
There are a few ways for a line-over to occur but, as the jumper said, this was probably a packing error compounded by not replacing a worn stow band. To prevent this, it’s all about the basics: don’t get complacent and don’t rush. Take your time every time you pack, walk your lines, check to see if stows or closing loops need to be replaced, and do it right. The same thing goes for the visor; all your gear should be checked on every jump to ensure it’s going to function the way you need it to.
This jumper said they were NOT chasing their cutaway, it just looks close. That being said: don’t chase your cutaways to the point where it looks like you’re about to collide with them! Wrapping yourself up in the main you just cut away could make a bad day even worse. And, while this jump was in the desert, in an environment without good outs, chasing down a main could leave you in a tight spot. Get down safely and worry about the main once you’re on the ground.
Well a premature parachute opening while flying head down isn’t quite what this skydiver had in mind to celebrate jump #700. His hackey got caught in the plane and caused the premature opening only a few seconds after his exit. A lot of bad stuff could’ve happened but, thankfully, both the jumper and his friend above him made it to the ground safely.
Most incidents are the result of a chain reaction of small things that add up to one big event. In this case, there were two key things which led to this premature deployment:
This jumper said a video review showed that their hacky caught on something inside the airplane. Snag points, or even rubbing the bottom of your container against the floor of the aircraft, can be enough to pull on a handle. The same thing applies during an exit, catching the side of a door or bumping another jumper can easily expose enough of a pilot chute to cause a premie in the air.
The jumper also stated that "For some reason I did not do a handle check on this jump, it would have made the skydive much more enjoyable if I had.” — and a longer skydive, too 😉 A quick grab of the hackey could have informed the jumper of the potential safety issue.
When entering, moving around within and/or preparing to exit a plane, it’s important to maintain your situational awareness! Don’t drag your container against surfaces which would snag a flap, a handle, a pilot chute, etc. More so, when it happens – and it will, we’re packing lots of bodies into a plane like sardines into a can – pay attention, recognize it occurred, and take the time to ensure that nothing was shifted dangerously by getting a gear check.
Prior to exiting the plane, checking your handles and/or having a buddy give you a gear and pin check, should be able to catch and prevent a large portion of the equipment mistakes which result in safety issues. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t maintain awareness, it’s simple an extra precaution to keep you from becoming Internet famous in next week’s Friday Freakout video.
One last thing that should be said is that during free fly jumps, especially while head down, these issues become even more important. At the speeds achieved during a head down jump, a premie could result in serious bodily harm and/or death.
Speaking to a neurosurgery physician assistant (he happened to be sitting next to me as I wrote this) we discussed how aortic dissections, traumatic brain injuries, and diffuse axonal injuries resulting in brain death are all possible.
In layman’s terms: the body slows down as the canopy opens, but the internal organs keep moving. Having them slam into the body at 180mph is a recipe for a bad day. This jumper was fortunate that the premature deployment occurred super early in the jump (about 10 seconds and 1,000 feet) and he hadn’t hit dangerously high speeds.
We’re not trying to scare anyone off from shredding head down, we just want to note that using proper gear and checking it before a jump becomes more, not less, important as you become more experienced and progress into faster orientations of body flight.
While on an AFFI certification jump, the instructor-in-training has bit of an "ooops" moment when he accidentally pulls the cutaway handle of the "student" while doing a rollover.
We all make mistakes, so the takeaway message from this video is situational awareness: always be vigilant and mindful of your surroundings, your handles and the handles of those around you, your GoPro and the potential snag hazards, etc.
As for that industrial haze, yeeeeah, we'll just pretend that never happened.
