Mr. Bill exits can get a little spicy, and this one was no exception. On this Mr. Bill attempt, the pilot chute and bridle got caught under the other jumper’s leg and then wrapped around his foot. Fortunately, they were able to unwrap it and both jumpers landed safely.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a “Mr. Bill” is a skydive where one jumper holds onto another as the second person deploys their parachute. If the skydiver manages to hold on during the deployment process, they then hang around with their friend for a bit, then let go into freefall before opening their own parachute.
Mr. Bill exits are particularly tricky (read: potentially dangerous) and have a high chance of going awry. Some dropzones very specifically prohibit them from even being attempted because the reality is that many things can go wrong. This video demonstrates just one of them. Realistically, this jumper did a good job deploying their pilot chute quickly upon leaving the plane (a necessary action for a successful Mr. Bill) and the fact that it wrapped around the other jumper was probably just bad luck.
The number one thing that jumpers attempting a Mr. Bill should do as part of their preparation for the jump is to find more experienced jumpers who have done them before — successfully. Not only can this better prepare jumpers for a potentially sketchy skydive, it can give experienced folks at the dropzone a chance to intervene if the jumpers making the attempt are not ready for something like this.
We have no idea regarding the level of experience these jumpers had, but the individual who deployed their pilot chute did a beautiful job keeping calm and unwrapping the bridle from their buddy’s leg. They not only unwrapped it, but they had the sense to hold onto it to prevent it from deploying the main and potentially causing a “de-gloving” injury to their friend.
This newer jumper, with only 50-ish jumps at the time, tried exiting the plane without unfastening his seat belt. Uhhh... yeah... what else is there to say? No bueno.
This may sound weird to people from the US but there are places around the world that don’t require — or at least don’t enforce — the requirement that seat belts be worn during take-off. This jumper noted that the video is from 2015 and that his dropzone had just started requiring seat belts, so this was a new procedure for him at the time.
Had this jumper sat up to check his gear before the jump, he would likely have noticed that he still had his seat belt on.
This type of incident is a perfect example of why more experienced jumpers get annoyed when the back of the plane doesn’t get up until the red light comes on. Prior to the door being opened, it’s important to get up and ensure your pilot chute didn’t sneak out, your pin didn’t become dislodged, etc. It’s not certain that a gear check would have caught this issue — some longer seat belts still have enough slack for a person to get up — but that’s the type of thing that should become obvious pretty quickly during a gear check.
We’ve seen a new jumper intentionally make sure that their seat belt was still on before opening the door at 2,000 feet. When (calmly and politely) asked “What were you thinking?!?” the jumper didn’t understand what had happened; it turns out it was their first time opening the door and they were scared of falling out below hop and pop altitude. It seems like common sense, but it’s not really discussed in AFF and new jumpers may not understand how catastrophic it would be for a plane to have a parachute deploy while the jumper is still attached to their seat belt.
This was an AFF-IE (AFF Instructor Examiner) jump where, from what we can tell, the simulated AFF student was making the student instructor work pretty darn hard! We’re not getting into that aspect of the jump – or about the untied shoelace – but the scary aspect of this jump was when the “student” deployed his main and his helmet/camera got stuck on the RDS slider. Fortunately he had a proper cutaway system on the helmet, so he cutaway the helmet before chopping the main canopy and landed safely. The helmet and canopy separated from the jumper, which provided a very interested POV as the camera helmet made its way down to the ground.
It's quite rare for a cut away helmet and camera to remain so stable – and pointed directly down at the ground– for the entire freefall to the ground. This is NOT a video of a jumper slamming into the ground without a parachute! The last moments of the video are from the view of a camera which was mounted to a helmet that the jumper cutaway from his body. The jumper landed safely and no one was hurt on this jump.
This jumper looked stable when he deployed the main canopy, even though he had been simulating a hot mess of an AFF student throughout most of the jump. The fact that the RDS got caught on the camera mount was arguably just bad luck.
The most obvious way to prevent a snag like this is to minimize the stuff on top of your helmet or by making sure it’s optimized for avoiding snags. Many jumpers don’t realize how easily a standard GoPro mount can catch a few lines and how huge a difference a roller mount or a low-profile mount can make. The less gear you have on your head, the better. And if you’re going to have gear on your head, make sure it’s set up to avoid snags.
Jumpers need to realize that ANYTHING they mount on their helmet can pose a hazard and that they need to be ready and willing to lose their helmets in order to save their own lives. More importantly, they need to be ready and willing to make that decision quickly. Many jumpers think about the fact that their helmet holds upwards of a thousand dollars of equipment, and they may not want to cut it away as a result. At the end of the day, losing a helmet full of gear is totally worth it if that’s the cost to walk away from an otherwise potentially fatal malfunction.
On his 21st wingsuit jump, this novice wingsuiter was flying with a more experience jumper (POV camera). Despite some separation between them, everything was going well until the newer jumper – who was above the other jumper at the time – attempted a barrel roll. The maneuver resulted in a rapid loss of altitude, the jumper flailing for a moment and then nearly hitting the other skydiver at high speed. Fortunately, there was no contact and both jumpers landed safely.
The newer jumper readily admitted that he was unfamiliar with wingsuit progression and that he hadn’t done his research. He noted that, upon further education regarding the issue, a jumper “early on in their wingsuit progression” should never attempt maneuvers like a barrel roll while flying above other jumpers.
The old truism is, “Plan the jump. Jump the plan.” It has been around for ages for a good reason. If you want to attempt exciting new maneuvers, include them in the dive flow when you’re on the ground. If they’re not safe, that gives other jumpers the opportunity to communicate and tell you that you shouldn’t try them. Alternatively, if they are safe, including your intended plan in the dive flow ensures other jumpers know what you’re going to try so that they can be ready in case your attempt doesn't quite go as planned.
This incident also largely comes down to the fact that, when learning ANY new discipline, newer jumpers need to be told what is – or is not – acceptable for them to attempt at a given skill level. Had this jumper been properly trained for this jump, this might not have happened.
This skydiver with around 50-ish jumps had incorrectly routed his chest strap, resulting in the chest strap coming undone in freefall. Fortunately, another jumper in the group– a Tandem Instructor with over 3,000 jumps – noticed the chest strap flapping in the wind; the TI grabbed his friend to show him that the chest strap was undone. After he realized what was going on, the jumper grabbed onto the strap, deployed his main canopy and landed safely without further incident.
The jumper had incorrectly routed his chest strap. He failed to go around the friction adapter and then back under it. That routing is what allows friction to be created by the pressure of the adapter pressing the strap against the square ring.
As part of his gear check, the jumper was grabbing both the under and over part of the strap and pulling against the hardware. This felt secure because – by holding both parts of the strap – his grip was preventing any movement.
The black hardware on a black strap made for very little contrast, making it more difficult for the jumper, and his buddies, to see that there was a misrouted chest strap.
Misrouting typically happens one of two ways:
In either case, if they slide their hand or fingers under the straps – don’t grab onto them – and just push away from their chest, the fact that friction is not being created will make it obvious that the strap was not routed properly.
The black hardware made the mistake harder to see but that’s not an excuse. When you’re checking your buddy, you need to get hands on their equipment and physically check that it’s good to go.
Here's a bizarre malfunction you don't see every day -- or ever. As this AFF student initiated the pull sequence, he accidentally slid his hand down the side of his body, under the harness, and pulled the pilot chute through the harness causing a pilot chute in tow! The instructor saw it happening but wasn't able to stop the student in time. Fortunately, in a ninja-level move, the AFF-I managed to grab the bridle, pulled the pilot chute back through the harness and released it; giving the student a regular deployment which he then landed. Wow.
The submission that came with this video noted that, due to the student's body type, the instructors wanted him on a larger canopy. However, the only container they had with a canopy of the proper size "didn't fit the student as well as (they) wanted." The jumper was doing well until he decided to slide his hand under his harness. The question that comes up is: if the equipment fit properly, would his hand have slid down on the outside of the container and not caused any issues at all?
The AFF-I who sent in this video noted that instructors should "Always expect students to find new and exciting ways to try and kill themselves, or you." This was certainly an incident underscoring that truism.
Hang out at enough dropzones and sooner or later you’ll hear the phrase, "Student gear is usually one-size-fits-none." However, this incident underscores why that type of argument can result in serious consequences. Ultimately, every jumper should be using equipment that doesn’t compromise when it comes to safety but that’s even more important when it comes to students. Instructors, S&TA’s, DZM’s and DZO’s have a responsibility to make sure that new jumpers are entering the sport safely.
We really want to applaud the main-side instructor on an amazing job realizing what was happening and pulling that bridle back through the harness to get the pilot chute out. Even after watching it a few times, it doesn’t stop being impressive how quickly he reacted. Another note, however, is the fact that the reserve-side instructor had already left the student during the deployment when they are typically supposed to ride through the deployment until the student is ripped out of their hands.
Wow, this was so close to being a really bad day for this tandem. As the Tandem Instructor was moving towards the door, his reserve parachute deployed in the plane! Fortunately, the videographer saw it, grabbed it, and another TI helped control the situation. The door was immediately closed, the reserve was passed forward, and the plane landed with no further incident.
The submission details noted that they believe the TI snagged his reserve on the door track while he was moving forward from the bench.
Snag hazards are common on every aircraft and all jumpers should be aware of them. Every skydiver, from an AFF student to the most experienced examiner, needs to make sure that they aware of their surroundings and that their containers do not rub up against something that could dislodge a pin, snag a cable, or pull a handle.
This could have been a very bad day. But instead, thanks to staff members who were heads-up and reacted quickly, it just resulted in a plane ride back to the ground. The videographer on that front float was paying attention to everything that was going on, saw the threat and reacted instantly. The second TI, an S&TA, quickly alerted everyone to the situation and directed them to get the TI back into the plane, close the door, and pass the reserve forward towards the nose of the plane.
I don't think dodging a helicopter in freefall was part of this AFF student's ground school 😲
This AFF jump took place during a boogie, which offered heli jumps to fun jumpers at the boogie. As the student was deploying his main, the student and his instructors fell dangerously close to the helicopter as it was climbing to altitude. The main side instructor had some colorful words to say (and maybe some colorful underwear to wash) but everyone landed safely.
In the video submission it was noted, “A helicopter was brought in for the boogie, piloted by someone unfamiliar with skydive operations.” Evidently this pilot was not experienced with flying jumpers and was not aware of the (common sense) safety considerations which jump pilots should have in mind.
The submission also notes that, “Communication between pilots and the safety crew was lost during this incident.” It’s difficult to determine whether this means that communication was lost between the pilot dropping jumpers at altitude, the pilot in the helicopter, and/or ground control.
A few experienced jump pilots and ground control personnel were consulted on this video. A myriad of points was brought up.
1. Ground control: During boogies, dropzones should have an “air-boss” on the ground whose sole purpose is coordinating aircraft. If there are only two planes operating, the argument can be made they are able to communicate with one another. However; if there are three or more aircraft, low passes, high pulls, CRW jumps, etc.; there should be someone controlling the chaos.
2. Typically, communication issues should temporarily halt an aircraft’s operations:
-- If communication between the helicopter pilot and the ground was lost, they should not have taken off. And they certainly should not have flown under jump run.
-- If communication between the aircraft pilot and the ground was lost, they should not have dropped their jumpers without permission. (During a boogie with multiple aircraft, most dropzones require pilots to communicate when they are preparing to give the green light.)
3. Airspace plan: Many dropzones institute airspace plans which avoid this type of situation by preventing aircraft from flying through jump run airspace.
As noted, the helicopter pilot was inexperienced and that may have contributed to them not knowing what to do in a situation where they lost communications. However proper briefings on topics such as skydiving operations in general, airspace considerations, communications plans, etc., should have remedied their lack of experience.
This is a very minor tangential note. But letting civilian students jump in combat boots – while not a violation of regulation – isn’t ideal. Combat boots are heavy, thick, and can prevent a student from having proper body awareness. They are more difficult to fly and their usage can create bad habits.
After a relatively uneventful two-way, these skydivers turned away from each other without tracking away and… deployed their canopies!? They seem to have skipped the whole “track away” part of the jump; consequently, they opened up next to each other and had a canopy collision. Fortunately, they didn't get wrapped up or entangled in their lines, and both of them landed safely.
The jumper whose video we're viewing turned away from his buddy and deployed his canopy less than three seconds later without ever tracking away. As his canopy deploys, we see that his buddy did the same thing -- neither one of them tracked away.
Ancillary to the fact that these guys didn’t create any horizontal separation between themselves before opening, is the fact that this jumper’s canopy opened severely off-heading and sent him towards his buddy who deployed behind him.
This line gets thrown around a lot when it comes to big ways where you’re trying to get dozens if not hundreds of people away from each other to give each jumper enough room to open their canopy safely. However, proper tracking technique – the kind that creates horizontal separation between you and others – is just as important on your two- or three-way jumps.
This jumper knew he was heading towards his buddy, and he did… well… nothing. His hands briefly go up to his front right riser, but he never put any input into his canopy to turn away from the canopy he was heading towards. Had he reached up and grabbed a riser and tried to get away, there’s at least a chance the collision could have been avoided.
The fact that this jumper’s canopy turned upon deployment could have been due to a wide variety of issues: packing error, unstable deployment, asymmetric deployment, body position, etc. However, as noted earlier, this is a tangential issue because the main problem on this jump was the lack of tracking and separation.
This video didn’t come with a written submission but based on their belly skills, we’re guessing these were relatively newer jumpers. There’s nothing wrong with jumping with a friend who just graduated AFF with you, but if you’re going to do so, it’s important to remember the basics.
Also, some folks may be thinking, “But they had cameras!” However, based on some of the equipment seen in the full cut of the video and the plane being flown, it was almost certainly not in the U.S.. Camera rules around the world may be looser compared to USPA guidelines and recommendations, so we are not taking the existence of cameras on this jump to mean these jumpers had at least 200 jumps.
