| Date | Location | Category | Age | # Jumps | AAD?/RSL? | Dropzone.com Report | Dropzone.com Discussion | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23/06/2001 | Tilstock, England | MAL | 30 | 1 | Y/Y | |||
| Description: During a first static line jump, this jumper backlooped through her lines on exit, and became entangled with the risers. No cutaway was made, and the rate of decent was not sufficient to fire the expert CYPRES. The parachute landed while still spiraling, and the student died on impact. A later report indicates that the reserve entangled with the main, so probably either he pulled the handle, or the CYPRES did, in fact, fire. | ||||||||
| Lessons: | ||||||||
| BPA Description: At approximately 09:20 hrs he boarded the clubs’ Cessna 206 along with three other Student Parachutists and an instructor.
After an initial pass to despatch the WDI the aircraft climbed to an altitude of approximately 3,500ft for the first of four planned ‘Student’ passes. He was to be the first Student to exit the aircraft. After the ‘cut’ the jumpmaster directed him into the door to adopt the exit position. On the instruction to leave the aircraft, he was seen to execute a “..weak..” exit causing him “..to roll onto his side and back..”. The jumpmaster reported that the position of the Student during the deployment of the main static line parachute resulted in his right leg becoming entangled with the right line-set above the risers. At this point the pilot banked the aircraft to the left. Both the pilot and the jumpmaster report that they continued to watch the Student’s descent, under a canopy that was both distorted and spinning. The remainder of the planned lift was aborted and the pilot brought the aircraft back to the ground. The DZ controller also observed the entire descent from the ground although the sun obscured his view of the actual exit. The DZ controller reported that he observed the Student spinning under a distorted canopy until he disappeared from view behind the hangar. He also reported that the Student appeared to be in an almost horizontal (back to earth) position whilst rotating under the canopy. |
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| BPA Conclusions:The deceased had received the required level of training during his initial course and that this initial training had been supplemented with the appropriate level of refresher training on the day of the actual descent.
At an altitude of approximately 3,500ft he was despatched from the Cessna 206 by the jumpmaster. During the exit he appeared to roll into a position that resulted in his right leg becoming caught up in the rigging lines of the main canopy. The resulting distortion of the main canopy caused the parachute to begin spinning. At some undetermined point during the descent he activated the ‘cut-away’ drills. Either the manual release of the ‘reserve ripcord’ handle or the action of the RSL lanyard caused the reserve to begin its deployment sequence. The pilot chute and bridle line of the reserve subsequently became entangled with the main parachute that was still in contact with some undetermined part of his body. The main canopy continued to spin throughout the duration of the descent causing severe twisting of both the canopy fabric and rigging lines. The entanglement of the main and reserve bridle/pilot chute prevented the full deployment of the reserve, despite apparent efforts to clear the lines of the reserve parachute’. |
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| Name | Iain Johnstone | |||||||