At 190 MPH, this high-speed premature opening was hard enough to rip the center cell of the canopy and break 4 lines! Luckily all that force went through her harness/canopy and Erika came out of this incident with minor whiplash and some bruising on her legs.
The likely cause of this premie was the use of a hackey on the pilot chute instead of a freefly pud. The BOC on the container is in good condition and tight, but due to the higher-than-usual speed while sit flying, the hackey bounced around enough to extract some of the pilot chute.
Do you use a hackey or freefly pud? Let us know below.
We all have good days and bad days. For this static-line progression skydive student, it was just one of "those" days — he got a little confused and pulled his cutaway handle instead of his main parachute handle. Ooops.
Then, instead of going straight for his reserve, he deployed his main parachute, which didn't stick around for very long before the RSL deployed his reserve. Double ooops.
*insert sarcastic tone here* If you're ever itching to pull all-the-handles, just remember it's 1) main 2) cutaway 3) reserve. And if you find yourself with a pulled cutaway handle in freefall, do yourself a favor and just go straight for your reserve. Your instructor will thank you.
We all make mistakes. Live and learn. And smile 🙂
This tandem instructor got himself into a sticky situation when the drogue wrapped around his foot shortly after exiting the plane. He struggled to clear the entanglement as they began to spin, so he deployed the reserve and they landed safely.
Perhaps this could have been avoided if the TI kept a big body position on exit instead of trying to wrap his leg around the passenger? Or maybe he could've kicked off the shoe to clear the wrap?
I'm not a TI, and it's easy for me to offer suggestions sitting on this end of the keyboard, but maybe some experienced tandem instructors could chime in with some helpful advice on how to avoid a situation like this...
This skydiver pitched his pilot chute to deploy his main canopy, but the parachute didn't open — it was a pilot chute in tow, a total malfunction.
A pilot chute in tow is a high speed malfunction that requires quick thinking. In this case, the skydiver decided to go straight for his reserve to get a parachute over his head as quickly as possible. However, just as he pulled his reserve handle, the main parachute deployed.
Then he had a two-out scenario to deal with.
As the main canopy separated from the reserve, he had an opportunity for a clean cutaway without an entanglement and he landed safely on his reserve.
Emergency procedures for a pilot chute in tow malfunction have been a long-standing controversy. To go straight for the reserve, or cutaway and then pull the reserve? That is the question.
The USPA SIM shows both options, with no preference, and there are mixed feelings in the skydiving community.
There are those in favor of a cutaway before pulling the reserve:
Cut that s#!t away! The last thing I want is that main randomly coming out and inflating at some point during or after the reserve inflation.
Some are concerned about the unknown outcome of cutting away before pulling the reserve:
If you cut away, the departing main, with its lines and risers, may entangle the inflating reserve. That, and a reserve is never guaranteed to work. If it doesn't, and I didn't cut away, I might still be able to get my main out. If I did cutaway, I've lost that option.
There are those in favor of going straight to reserve:
My opinion and practice for a pilot chute in tow is to deal with the actual problem first — pull the reserve. If the main pin releases subsequent to that, I'll deal with it then. I don't want to waste my precious time dealing with an imaginary problem when I have a very real problem in hand.
And there are those who feel the EPs really just depend on the situation:
Know why you do each set of emergency procedures for each situation... don't just instinctively cutaway and go straight to reserve, as it may not be the right course in that moment.
So, I'm curious, what are you EPs for a pilot chute in tow?
Do you first cutaway, then pull your reserve? Or do you go straight for your reserve without cutting away?
Here's a building BASE jump that turned out to be way more intense than this BASE jumper was hoping for.
He over-rotated a front flip and got entangled with the bridle, which resulted in sketchy opening. But hey — a sketchy parachute opening is better than no parachute opening at all, right?
A bag lock malfunction is a relatively simple high-speed malfunction to clear with a cutaway, but heavy line twists on a reserve canopy is something no skydiver wants to see.
"The bag lock was caused by two lines getting caught around the tuck tabs on the d-bag — the tuck tabs were used on the front of the d-bag instead of grommets."
And bonus points for holding on to both of his handles 🙂
Out of curiosity, do you consider this incident to be a "double malfunction?" Do you consider line twists to be a type of malfunction or just a nuisance?
WHOA! You know $h*t has hit the fan when you're flying head down with your buddy and the next thing you know, you're holding your d-bag in your hands. The situation escalates quickly and turns into a body wrap full of lines, risers, bridle, and whatever else could work its way into this clustered mess. Luckily this skydiver managed to clear his entangled body before getting his reserve out. Phew!
This would be a difficult and strange scenario for anyone to deal with in the moment.
Aside from the obvious "gear checks" advice to avoid premature openings in the first place, what would you do in that moment? What would you have done differently?
This skydiver has heavy line twists on his Katana 120, which leads to a cutaway followed by more line twists on his reserve. Not fun! The cutaway was initiated at 2,800 feet and he was under a functional reserve by 1,700 feet.
He had a Skyhook RSL installed, and his initial assessment was that the counter-clockwise spin at the time of the cutaway is what caused the Skyhook to disconnect. However, there is the possibility that the Skyhook may have been disconnected due to out-of-sequence emergency procedures; it looks like both the cutaway and reserve handles may have been pulled at the same time, which caused the reserve pilot chute to inflate and deactivated the Skyhook.
What're your thoughts or suggestions about this incident? Let's discuss in the comments below.
Landing off the DZ usually isn't fun, but this skydiver made his own fun by swooping the pond in someone's backyard on his comp Velo 71 with a 2.6 wingloading.
This might not be a typical "freakout" video, but it serves as a simple reminder: check the spot before jumping. None of the other jumps on this load checked the spot either, and only 3 people made it back to the airport (but not the main landing area).
Check. The. Spot.
