A cliff strike while BASE jumping can really mess up your day, especially when it ends with a broken pelvis followed by 9 months of recovery. While always wear protective gear is never a bad idea, I think the take-away from this incident is to practice tracking off a more forgiving exit point and always remember to steer your canopy above the line twists. Heal fast mate.
Typically our Friday Freakout series is reserved for malfunction videos that our community can learn from, but every once in a while, we just have to scratch our heads and say "WTF?"
If you cant be bothered to check your alti at least once or don't notice ground rush below 1,000 feet, then maybe skydiving just isn't for you. Luckily they both had AADs, and the double Cypres fire is what saved both of their asses. I especially love the altitude awareness once he lands. Yes, sir, you are at zero feet. Oh, and the icing on the cake: they found both free bags... tangled together. WTF indeed.
Unless youre into CRW, the purpose of tracking away at break-off is to gain horizontal separation so that you DO NOT collide with your friends on opening (or come close enough that you soil your pants). When in doubt, blame the booties 😉
Although this may not be part of your "standard" gear check, please take the time to make sure you're not connected to the aircraft by your seatbelt before you exit -- especially when your friends are telling you to "STOP!" At least it wasn't an instructor hanging from the plane like this other incident.
This BASE jumper's canopy spins up on opening, which takes him a bit lower than he'd like and he ends up in the trees. It almost looks like he could've made it over the trees on his right side, but I'm just a spectator in this situation and hindsight is 20/20.
This video seems out of a Chuck Jones cartoon of the Roadrunner and the Coyote, but it's real. It happened in Konakova, Russia. A BASE jumper jumps off the top of a 400-foot (120 meter) electric tower, but his parachute fails. Miraculously, he survived the fall thanks to the powdered snow below. He broke his legs, pelvis, and some vertebrae. Fortunately, he was walking again only three months later, proving once again that Russians are made of iron.
At 60 MPH (about 100 km/h), the crunching sound of this gnarly parachute collision is like watching a car crash... minus the airbags and bumpers. I'm sure both of these skydivers wish they'd tracked just a little bit further apart for more separation. Remember to keep your head up, eyes open, and cover yourself with bubble wrap whenever possible.
What starts out as a solid 4-stack CRW (canopy relative work) rotation by Team Hypoxia quickly turns into four good friends trying to kill each other in another wild parachute wrap. Surprisingly, this mess only resulted in one cutaway.
A reserve ride after a pilot chute in tow turns into a sketchy two-out scenario, leaving this skydiver to think quickly: land the two-out, cutaway the main, or... stuff the inflating main parachute down his chest strap to keep it put? He opts for the latter! Now, let's play some trivia. With a pilot chute in tow, do you: a) cutaway, then go for your reserve, or b) go straight for your reserve?
