As this wingsuiter deployed his main canopy... nothing happened! Realizing that he was experiencing a high-speed malfunction, the jumper followed his emergency procedures: cutaway and pulled his reserve. However, somehow, his pilot chute managed to get caught in the deploying reserve, the lines from his main snagged on his Cookie G3 side plate, and the d-bag with this main canopy ended up dangling between his legs for the duration of the canopy flight until landing. This jumper decided to refrain from unstowing his brakes because he was comfortable landing on his rear risers, and feared that the surge created by unstowing his brakes — or any big movement — might result in his main canopy finally deploying and causing further complications. Fortunately, he was able to land safely on his rears.
This jumper admitted that this was only his second time using that particular main canopy in his container and that "its not technically recommended by the manufacturer since its too bulky." So, in other words, this jumper knew that the manufacturer did not recommend using that size canopy in that size container, and decided to jump something that wasn't appropriate.
One other possibility is that the jumper didn't give his pilot chute a good strong pitch and left it in the larger than normal burble created behind a wingsuit. When this happens, the pilot chute can just spin around in that burble and never actually leave the wingsuiter's back. This would potentially account for why his pilot chute actually ended up getting caught in his reserve as it deployed. The pilot chute may have been caught up in the burble, with the d-bag stuck in his container, and as the reserve deployed the pilot chute may have been yanked up with the reserve.
The folks who make skydiving gear know what they're doing. They do it for a living, they are meticulous in the design and testing process, and they take their jobs seriously because our lives depend on them only putting out products that are capable of saving lives when jumpers decide to participate in an activity which, by its basic nature, is dangerous. When they say that a piece of equipment isn't designed to work with another piece of equipment, it's NOT because they are trying to make you downsize more often and spend more money — it's because they don't want anyone dying while using their equipment! These aren't arbitrary recommendations, these are intended as life-saving instructions which you ignore at your own risk. This jumper knowingly ignored manufacturer recommendations and was very lucky to have walked away from this incident.
We're pretty sure that as this jumper lands... he says, "Dude, this is not my reserve!" There are two equally scary propositions that may arise from that statement. Either the jumper didn't know what reserve he had in his container or his rigger put the wrong reserve in when he was repacking the container. The former seems to be far more likely but either way, that comment is a big red flag that something was wrong here!
This AFF student was looking pretty good right up until pull time, then the Pucker Factor got turned up to 12 and the knob broke off. While she reached back to grab her pilot chute, she got a little wobbly and the pilot chute wrapped around her ankle. Her deployment bag left the container, but couldn't extract due to the snagged pilot chute, and the lines got entangled around her body. The instructor came in to help unwrap the bridle from her foot, but he wasn't able to untangle the mess and the lines ended up wrapping around his head/neck! 😳 As the instructor deployed her reserve, his helmet and neck were still caught in the lines, resulting in his head almost being ripped off! Fortunately, he remained conscious, landed safely, and the resulting injuries were limited to facial lacerations and bruising. Given his laugh at the end of the video, his sense of humor remained intact too!
While this incident is crazy intense, the issue from which everything stemmed was simple: bad body position. The student was doing pretty well but when she went to pitch, she was kicking her legs. Her legs were bent really far in towards her butt, resulting in the pilot chute wrapping itself around her ankle.
We touch on this pretty often — student/rental gear is never perfectly sized for the individual and this can create some sketchy situations. One AFF-I who reviewed this video noted that because the container was so huge on this student, that her pilot chute was incredibly far down her body and she was effectively forced to reach halfway down her butt crack to reach her pilot chute. This likely contributed both to her instability and the likelihood of her pilot chute snagging on her leg.
Again, this is a super simple issue which could have been prevented through very basic body position corrections. If the student had her legs out a little more and had she not been bent at the torso/head-low, this incident probably wouldn't have happened. A similar argument could be made about how, if her container had been smaller and more appropriate for someone of her size, this may not have gone down the way it did.
This instructor was pretty heads-up (no, that's not a pun about him almost being decapitated by the lines around his neck 😳). There's an argument that he should have been a little closer to the student, but she was doing pretty well. More importantly, when something went wrong, he was there immediately and pulled her reserve. Then, despite taking a pretty serious hit to the head and neck by her lines, he maintained altitude awareness and went directly to his reserve rather than deploy his main due to his low altitude. All in all, he saved his student, and then he saved himself. That's the job.
The details submitted with this video were a little inaccurate and the "meat missile" jumper in this video reached out to clarify the details. Here's what they had to say:
"I am an AFF instructor and D license skydiver with 715 jumps.. nearly 600 belly skydives. I was not trying to sit fly to the formation. I hadn’t done a belly jump in about a month and am not used to chasing formations without a jumpsuit. I tried to slow down from a dive and overrated and lost control. I’m definitely embarrassed about it, but it happened. Just wanted to give you my side of the story!"
These skydivers launched a linked 3-way belly formation and the fourth jumper was meant to chase the group and break into the formation, with the goal of transitioning the belly round to a (sit) campfire. Unfortunately, the chaser — apparently worried that too much vertical distance had opened up between themselves and the rest of the group — allegedly decided go into a sit-fly to get there faster! As you might expect with an inexperience group, the chaser turned into a plant-based meat missile and just barely missed hitting the group very hard.
The jury is still out on whether plant-based meat missiles are better or worse than regular meat missiles, but one thing is for sure... this one was spicy!
Much like not crossing the streams in Ghostbusters, skydivers — and especially inexperienced jumpers — should typically not cross disciplines in a situation like this one. By going into a vertical orientation (fast fall rate) while the rest of the group was in a horizontal orientation (slower fall rate), the chaser made the speed difference between themselves and the group pretty significant. If a belly group is falling at 120mph, and a freeflyer is falling at 150mph or more, that's still 200lbs of skydiver slamming into someone at 30mph. That's more than enough to leave someone unconscious... or worse.
We've all been there before. You get out, realize you're much higher than the group, and REALLY want to get down to the group. The urge to pick up speed and get down is going to be there. You don't want to miss out on the jump. You don't want to ruin everyone else's jump because you were part of the dive flow. It sucks, but for your safety, and for the safety of everyone else on the jump, you need to get down there in a safe and controlled manner, then level-slot-and-dock. LEVEL. SLOT. DOCK.
The submission for this video stated that the jumper made a conscious decision to go into sit-fly in order to get down to the group. We have a sneaking suspicion that this may have actually just been a bad exit. Only ten seconds into a jump, barely off the hill, it seems unlikely that the jumper would have had time to have gotten stable on their belly, seen the distance between them and the group, and decided to go into a sit. This suspicion is supported by how the jumper doesn't appear in a stable sit at all and is tumbling onto their back as they pass the group. We weren't there so we don't know, but if that was the case, then this jump also demonstrates why, when jumping together, inexperienced jumpers should keep the groups small and, if they're going to jump together, may want to consider a linked exit.
After a relatively stable exit, this student slowly goes into a spin (side note: we're pretty sure this was a coach jump because at no point do we see the coach attempt to touch the student. For those who aren't aware, coaches aren't supposed to touch students) . While it's hard to see the coaches hands, it doesn't appear that they gave any hand signals. The student's spin gradually builds up speed until, by the time they deploy, the student is spinning like a newly released vinyl of Metallica's "Black" album.
We're going back to Skydiving 101 on this write-up and reviewing stuff that many of you probably haven't talked about since ground school. When you're learning to do your controlled turns during AFF, you do so by intentionally dropping an arm or a leg to deflect the air and turn in one direction or another. This student was, effectively, doing the same thing... but unintentionally. His legs weren't even so he started a turn that just never stopped!
The jumper filming, who we are again assuming is a coach, didn't really give the student much instruction. We see them give a "legs out" signal at one point, but that's pretty much it. While there's a good chance that the student would have missed any hand signals, the lack of feedback brings up questions regarding whether the coach was properly trained on what to do in this situation. (Also, it was pointed out that the "legs out" signal was a bit questionable - this jumper would have probably been better off had they been told to arch and bring their feet in, or been told to tap their feet together.)
This student may have been a super star on all his previous jumps, and this may have just been the jump where he blanked on what do do. However, his apparent inability to counter a turn with input on the opposite side raises eyebrows. One AFF-I who who reviewed this video noted that the student should probably have not been cleared to start doing coached jumps.
This brings up a point regarding the duty of AFF-I's and S&TA's to be honest about whether students are ready to be cleared for the next level of jump. It may be tempting to pass students who are on the border of passable, but folks in positions of authority have a responsibility to make sure jumpers are not allowed to move on to the next level until they're truly ready.
When this jumpers turns and gives us a side profile, there's enough room between his rig and his back to park a Skyvan. This issue comes up almost every time we see a student in a Friday Freakout video (which is rare); "Student gear is usually one-size-fits-none." We know it's difficult to find gear that will fit students perfectly but we felt that it should be pointed out that this gear was not ideal for this jumper.
This wingsuiter had a questionable body position while deploying his main canopy, which resulted in a front flip through the risers! 10/10 on the front flip… 0/10 for doing it while tossing the pilot chute!
This outside view from the second wingsuiter gives us a good perspective on issues with this deployment. It should be noted that the transition from wingsuit flight to canopy flight is a particularly tricky skill in skydiving and it requires the wingsuit pilot to be very aware of what they’re doing with every part of their body.
Here, we see the pilot first drop their knees and bring their feet together, and then they proceed to drop their upper body down, almost as if they were attempting a swan dive into a pool. That resulted in the front flip through the risers.
There are multiple techniques for deploying a canopy while in a wingsuit. Newer jumpers are sometimes taught to collapse all their wing surfaces to minimize the burble behind them. More experienced jumpers increase pressure on their leg wing in order to flare their body, decrease their forward speed, and come to a head-high orientation. This video wasn't submitted with a detailed description, but we’re guessing this jumper was attempting that maneuver.
However, with wingsuit deployments, it’s crucial that the pilot holds their body position through the deployment process. One wingsuiter we consulted on this video noted that the pitch is just the start of the deployment process, not the end of it, and that wingsuit pilots need to hold that body position until their canopy is open.
This is a strange malfunction you don't see very often — or ever. While his main canopy was deploying, this skydiver's left riser disconnected, and — his RSL being connected to that side — it partially pulled the reserve. He attempted to cutaway but couldn't get the handle to budge. He threw the reserve free bag to the side as far as he could, and then used both hands to pull on the cutaway as hard as he could. The second cutaway attempt successfully discounted the right riser, then he dealt with the line twists in the reserve. Notably, he was holding onto the right riser when he chopped and consequently broke a finger. Fortunately, that was the extent of his injuries.
The jumper who submitted this video said that he spoke to multiple master riggers and that both the canopy and rig manufacturers are investigating this incident. At the moment, the cause of the incident is unclear. The master riggers said that "based on the damage patterns... everything was hooked up correctly." Some theories were presented but there is no evidence to support them and rather than publish unverified conjecture, we are going to just leave it at that.
The reality about skydiving, or any inherently dangerous activity, is that no matter how good the equipment is, or how experienced the operator may be, something can still go wrong.
In skydiving, the factor that causes dangerous situations is almost universally the operator. Most of the injuries and deaths we see are due to user error. Examples include packing mistakes, poor decision making under canopy, ignoring safety standards, not doing gear checks, etc. However, sometimes — rarely — there are unpredictable equipment issues that the operator could not have prevented. Those situations are the ones where emergency procedures really matter and when having trained yourself to stay calm in an emergency can save your life.
A questionable angle jump with varying skill levels leads to a messy break-off, a lazy track and a snivelling canopy that nearly results in a canopy collision. It started off as a five-way and this skydiver (POV) had a late exit, but the group wasn't staying together particularly well. Ultimately this jumper couldn't catch up to the group, so he did a slight turn, paused and then pitched. As the canopy snivelled for a second, suddenly he saw a yellow canopy rise up from behind him! Thankfully they didn't collide, but it was a close call!
Once this jumper gave up on trying to chase the group, it looks like they did a lazy track and slowed down after only a second or two. They may have thought that the sudden altitude difference between them and the group meant that they weren't in any danger of a midair collision with the jumpers below but, if that's the case, they were (obviously) very wrong. That lazy track didn't create enough horizontal separation from the other jumpers in the group.
Again, this was supposed to be a five-way angle jump but only three jumpers stayed together. One jumper — the one in orange — is completely gone after the first few seconds of the jump. This suggests that this jump had a few people who could keep up in a steep angle, and a few folks who were still learning. That is a dangerous mix which most load organizers and coaches try to avoid. An experienced angle organizer noted that this group was not very tight and that a few of the turns the leader initiated "could have created a head on collision if someone was chasing...". He added that he would "never do multiple corkscrews like that" unless he knew 100% that everyone was right there — visibly — with him.
This is another one of those cliches/truisms that gets tossed around a lot, but it's been around for a long time because it's true! When it comes to break-off, everyone in the air is trying to kill you and your only job is to create separation — both horizontally and vertically — between yourself and everyone else.
This jumper's lazy track didn't create enough horizontal separation away from the other jumpers, and it may have increased the fall rate (relative to someone tracking well) which reduced the vertical separation. When combined with a slow opening due to a snivelling canopy, it could have ended very badly. In this case, it was still uncomfortably close.
Even some of the top angle coaches in the world won't take more than 2 new angle flyers on a jump. Further, if someone more experienced joins, rather than going full throttle to have fun with their fellow ninjas, good coaches will cater to the newer jumpers and do what they can to keep everyone together. In short, if you want to work with newer angle flyers, focus on working with newer angle flyers. If you want to go steep and fast, tell them that you'll catch them on the next load when you can focus on them.
This skydiver's canopy opened up into some line twists, which came undone easily. However, they came undone so easily — and quickly — that the momentum led to more line twists in the other direction. The jumper's left arm, which had a Garmin watch under the sleeve, got caught in the new twists. With a diving canopy that he knew he wouldn't be able to fly, and an arm he couldn't pull out of the twists, he decided that his only option was to cutaway from the main. He did so — breaking his arm in the process (radius bone on the forearm) — but his RSL deployed his reserve and he landed safely.
One rigger who we consulted on this video suggested that the initial line twists were likely created by a packing error. Even the jumper pointed out that, in the slow motion version of the video, it's visible that the risers are uneven on deployment. However, as is the case in every line twist video, without seeing the actual deployment process it's almost impossible to tell definitively what the cause was. Either way, the line twists aren't the main focus of this analysis.
We've said it before, and we're sure we will say it again on a regular basis up until the moment that Bill Booth patents the self-packing parachute: While packing, you need to take your time, focus on the task at hand, and do it right. This goes doubly for packing high performance canopies which tend to open in a far less docile manner and can quickly decide to go into a dive while you're trying to get out of line twists.
While an altimeter is highly recommended (read: necessity), consider not wearing extra gear like Garmin watches or fitness trackers, which can get caught in your equipment. Had this jumper not been wearing a watch under his left arm, it's possible that he would have been able to get his arm out of his risers. Further, as we'll note below, any gear that is attached to your arms increases the likelihood of a snag or a — *gulp* — degloving injury. This includes silicone rings! While they're certainly safer than metal rings, even silicone rings — if caught in a fast and forceful manner — can result in a snag and degloving.
This jumper broke his arm due to this incident (radius bone on the forearm). If that's the case, he got lucky to have not suffered a far more severe injury: degloving. The name suggests what happens but, the simple version is that when a limb is wrapped by a riser/line/bridle and the parachute to which it's connected goes one way, while the jumper's body goes another way, the flesh on that limb is ripped off. (These types of injuries are more common among military static-line jumpers, where putting out 64 troopers out of a C-130 in a minute or two results in static lines bouncing around and sometimes wrapping themselves around a wrist.) This jumper was lucky that's not what happened when he chopped.
This was a bad situation and once this jumper's hand was stuck in those risers he had very few good options. Chopping could have ripped the flesh off his arm, but there was no way he was going to be able to land that canopy. He did what he had to do. However, we still expect that someone viewing this video will bring up another option that may have been available to this jumper: his trusty hook knife.
We admit that, if he had time, cutting the risers on his main to free his hand could have mitigated the risk of the aforementioned potential of a degloving injury. However, diving canopies with line twists burn through altitude very quickly and this jumper was likely in a better position to decide if he had time to try that option. At the end of the day, he did what he had to do to survive, and we're glad he did.
Wow, this might be the first time we've ever seen anything like this one! These skydivers were attempting to put together a 10-way belly jump from two Cessna 206's. As one of the jumpers climbed out, he sat on the wing strut to give everyone else more room to set up in the door. In that moment, his d-bag popped out of the container and wrapped around the strut!
Fortunately his pilot chute remained in the BOC and he was able to pull the d-bag back up over the strut and exit without damaging the plane (or injuring the other jumpers). We were told that he worked out a snag during freefall and didn't deploy his pilot chute until 4,500 feet, but apparently it opened without any issue and he landed "uneventfully" on his main canopy.
When five people cram into a Cessna 206, they're going to be really up close and personal with one another (don't make matters worse without deodorant). Those tight conditions mean that there's always going to be some degree of rubbing up on something — either against another jumper or the plane. The video doesn't show this clearly, partially because of the cramped circumstances and partially because the sun is right behind the jumper in question, but we are guessing that as the jumper attempted to climb out and sit on the strut, he rubbed up against the door frame and dislodged the flap protecting their main pin, and then the pin itself too.
Like we said above, in these types of circumstances, rubbing against one another and the plane is pretty much unavoidable. However, just because something is inevitable doesn't mean that we don't take steps to minimize potential/foreseeable consequences. We all know that door frames are one of the most dangerous hard surfaces which can pop a flap, a pin, or a handle. If you know you're in a slot which requires you to come close to the door frame, take the extra half second to ensure that you're not rubbing your container up against it as you exit.
This jumper reportedly had just over one hundred jumps. If that's the case then he did a pretty good job reacting quickly, realizing that he needed to grab that bag, bring it around the wing strut, and get the heck away from everyone else. Some folks may argue that he should have tried to get back into the plane, but had his pilot chute come out while he was doing that it would have turned a relatively minor issue into one which could have killed him and maybe even brought the plane down.
