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.
This scary canopy collision occurred at 400 feet between a jumper who was flying a predictable landing pattern and a swooper who was unknowingly practicing his 180-degree turns in the standard (non-high performance) landing area. The swooper's canopy clipped the other jumper's feet, but fortunately the canopy didn't collapse and both jumpers landed safely — including an apology and hugging it out.
The swooper from this video explained that he "hadn't been to this DZ in three years and didn't realize there was a separate high performance landing area." This is a huge oversight. Anyone doing high-performance turns needs to proactively check the dropzone's policies for turns bigger than 90-degrees, if a specific area is set aside for high-performance turns, and if they even allow it after a jumper has gone to full altitude. Simply put, if you think you're experienced enough to be even attempting to swoop, you should be experienced enough to check the policies. For more on this issue, check the "Additional Notes" section below.
The jumper who was hit mentioned that he had target fixation on the ground as he was coming in on his final approach and didn't notice the other canopy until it was too late.
The swooper said that he hadn't been to that dropzone in in three years. We don't know if he failed to get a ground briefing or if he didn't pay attention to a ground briefing. Either way, had he known the expectations and the rules of the dropzone, this incident could have been prevented because he wouldn't have been doing a 180-degree turn and colliding with an unsuspecting jumper who was following a predictable left-hand pattern landing.
Let's start by saying that it certainly didn't help that the other canopy was mostly black and sort-of blended into the trees.
However, if you're going to be doing a big turn, it's your responsibility to know where everyone around you in the sky is located. This swooper was flying straight at the other canopy for a full five seconds during which he could have easily aborted had he seen them. His failure to see the other jumper was probably at least somewhat due to the fact that he was focused on looking up, grabbing the front risers, and setting up for the turn.
We think it's worth nothing that the USPA Group Member pledge includes a stipulation requiring that dropzones "Establish landing procedures that will include separation of high-speed and normal landings. These landing procedures must be prominently displayed and communicated to all jumpers at the drop zone." I happen to know the dropzone in question and I'm pretty sure that the last time I jumped there they told me that anyone doing a high-performance turn should request a low-altitude pass.
We've discussed this issue before in previous posts, but we'll rehash it. Generally speaking, most professional canopy coaches don't like 180-degree turns and tend to skip them in turn progression. The reason is that turning 180-degrees doesn't allow a jumper to have a sight picture of the landing area. Effectively, they're turning blind and have no idea what they may be looking at when they suddenly turn around.
This skydive student's 4th static line jump escalated quickly with a premature reserve parachute opening that ripped him off the plane step! While climbing out of the small aircraft, the reserve flap came undone and exposed the reserve pin. He unknowingly dragged the top of the container across the plane's door handle above him, resulting in the reserve pin getting dislodged which caused the premature opening. The student was ripped off the plane step by the reserve, barely missed the tail of the aircraft, and — of course — his static line also deployed his main canopy, resulting in a two-out. He cutaway the main and landed safely on his reserve.
The jumper appears to have been sitting up against the instrument panel, may have rubbed up against the pilot's seat while getting up, and certainly rubbed up against the door and the door handle as he got out onto the step. Any one of these moments could have resulted in a premature deployment. It's actually fortunate that it wasn't until he was outside the aircraft that this jumper finally snagged something so roughly that his reserve deployed. Had that happened while he was still in the plane, it could have resulted in him getting yanked out, and possibly sustaining a fatal impact on the inside of the doorway as he got pulled out.
If you watch closely, as soon as the student begins exiting the plane, the flap protecting his reserve pin just blows away, leaving the pin unprotected. This should not be feasible with properly maintained gear. The possibility exists that the student rubbed the flap and displaced it while getting up, but the video suggests that this may have been older gear that needed some love from a rigger.
It's important for skydivers to know how to exit any given aircraft and to know about potential snag points that could catch your equipment. You'll often see experienced jumpers reaching back to check their main flap and their pilot chute anytime they move around the plane and then again one last time right before the door is opened. What they're actually doing is checking to make sure that they didn't inadvertently catch their container on something that could result in an unsafe situation. Further, once you're aware of those snag points, it's important to remember not to rub up against them!
The flaps protecting your reserve pin and main pin start to wear out over time and they lose the stiffness required to remain firmly seated. They need to be kept in good repair and, if they're so weak that nothing more than the wind can uncover your pins, it's definitely time to have those flaps replaced.
To celebrate his 400th jump, this skydiver decided to do a bigway freefly tube jump, which was a bit sketchy and turned into a zoo — bodies everywhere with a lot of vertical and horizontal separation. Once he deployed his main canopy, he discovered it wasn't flyable due to a packing error. However, rather than letting go of the freefly tube to follow standard emergency procedures (EP's) for a clean cutaway, he held on to the tube and attempted a one-handed cutaway and reserve deployment. Fortunately he finally let go of the tube just as the reserve was deploying and he landed safely.
The video is scary because there's a tube involved, but if you watch closely, the tube isn't really involved in the malfunction! This was a straight up packing error! If our translation from French to English was correct (ahem, thanks Google Translate), it sounds like the jumper was anxious about jumping with a tube for the first time and wasn't paying attention while they were packing because they were having conversations about the upcoming tube jump.
It sounds like this jumper was nervous about the tube jump and, because they were so worried about what was going to be happening in the air, they made a serious mistake on the ground while packing. It's okay to think about your jump and visualize what you're going to be doing, but you shouldn't be worrying about the jump when there are other critical steps that require your complete attention. When you're packing or when you're doing gear checks? Those are times when your focus needs to totally be on what you're doing in that moment.
So, this jump probably shouldn't have happened in the first place. Some folks may call us boring or risk-averse, but 400 jumps probably isn't enough for a skydiver to be holding onto a tube. Additionally, almost nothing about this jump suggests that there were enough safety-conscious/experienced jumpers involved. There were two tubes, at least ten or eleven jumpers, half of them were at different levels, and a few were halfway across the sky. This was sketchy and someone like an organizer, S&TA, or DZM should have stepped in and made sure this could be attempted safely.
When getting briefed on the ground, the jumper was told by multiple individuals that, above all else, that they should NOT let go of the tube. Well, that's all well and good when everything is going according to plan, but once things started going awry and they cutaway, they should have let go! There is no reason to keep holding on to a 20-foot piece of fabric that is going to threaten to prevent your reserve canopy from deploying as cleanly as possible. Thankfully, this jumper realized that half a second before they pulled their reserve.
