Well the exit for this tandem skydive got a little messy, but it has a happy ending.
Shortly after exit, the tandem instructor and passenger end up on their back with no drogue out and then spin out of control. The instructor wasn't able to recover from the spin and he pitched the drogue while they were still on their back, which got caught around both of their legs.
Once the drogue entanglement cleared, the instructor was able to counter the spin. It sounds like the cameraman was pretty excited about the happy ending too wink 😉
A 4-way base blows apart on exit, so this skydiver chases after the lowest jumper. His intention was to "bear hug him and track away," but he comes in a little fast just as another jumper makes his way towards the low guy as well.
Luckily they avoided a zoo-dive-double-collision-sandwich.
Repeat after me: level, slot, dock. Level, slot, dock. NO bear hugs.
Shortly after exiting the plane, this skydiver had a premature opening and got entangled with the lines.
Fortunately he cleared the line entanglement from his body, but his body rotated through the risers as his canopy opened, which caused a step-through malfunction.
He cutaway and decided to burn some altitude in freefall before pulling his reserve because there was a group of wingsuiters exiting after him and he didn't want to be in their airspace under canopy.
Main Canopy: Leia 75
As the jumper was climbing out of the plane, he rubbed his rig against the door frame, which popped his main closing pin.
It’s always good practice to rotate your rig inwards towards the center of the door while climbing out to avoid rubbing your rig against the door.
A pilot chute in tow is a scary malfunction for any skydiver, let alone an AFF student.
You know it's a bad situation when your instructor screams "oh f#$k!"
The unstable deployment surely didn't help, but it seems the bridle got caught on his rig somewhere. Luckily he managed to clear the mal and deploy his main. Phew.
As this wingsuiter prepared to cutaway from heavy line twists, he realized his situation was much worse — the handle for his reserve parachute was stuck under the wing zipper!
He didn't have an RSL, so he knew that cutting away wouldn't automatically deploy his reserve.
He made a risky decision to cutaway anyways, with the intention of flying head-down to increase his speed in the hopes that his AAD (Vigil) would activate.
The plan worked and the Vigil saved his ass, but the madness for Sky MacGyver wasn't over just yet... he skimmed across power lines and slammed into some cinder blocks.
Wow, talk about a wild ride back down to earth!
A wingsuit pilot has heavy line twists due to the d-bag getting caught in the wingsuit burble on deployment. After fighting to kick out the twists, he cuts away to find his reserve in more line twists, which he finally clears by 300 feet. Phew!
NOTE: The rest of his reserve landing was edited in fast-forward.
Here's a different kind of flyby. The kind that requires a fresh pair of underwear and lots of swearing.
Since "teach me to swoop, bro" isn't a very helpful description, here are the firsthand details from the skydiver involved in this incident:
"I was trying to do a downwind swoop on the pond, but I was too low and couldn't pull out of the turn. I ended up crashing into the ground and breaking my left femur and shattering my right ankle, both requiring surgery — they had to reconstruct my ankle.
I only had 212 jumps and shouldn't have been trying to swoop the pond. Clearly I wasn't ready yet, but I learned my lesson the hard way.
The good news is he's still alive, recovered from surgery and jumping again.
This skydiver had an unexpected premature opening on his reserve parachute while sit flying at 10,000 feet (I suppose all premature openings are "unexpected," right?).
None of his handles were pulled, cable lengths were fine and the reserve closing loop was intact (no AAD misfire).
After inspecting the gear on the ground, it turns out the reserve closing loop was 12mm too long (Aerodyne recommends 110-123mm, this loop was 137mm).
The long closing loop combined with rubbing the back of his rig while sitting in the rear bulkhead of the plane was most likely the cause of this premature opening.
Repeat after me: gear checks, gear checks, gear checks. Alright, good talk. See you out there 😉
