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leewilcox

Non Injury Reserve Canopy Tree Landing, St. Marys, GA, USA, Jan 1, 2010

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Not a terrible story for a local TV station. I loved this quote: "He has done a lot of jumps. He has been jumping for a year and he said this was his 26th."
Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

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So, anyone have any factual further info regarding this?

- Premature AAD Fire?
- AAD Brand & Type?
- Further investigation or follow-up to take place as a result of the fire?

Looks like in the video, that the fire took place shortly after completion of a backloop. Can we get factual information regarding the actual AGL of that backloop, if it had anything at all to do with this, and the actual AAD fire/reserve deployment alt.?

Yeah, it's real interesting and funny - the perceptions of the whuffo media and all ("He's got a lot of jumps, and he's been doing this for a while... he's been jumping for more than a year, and he's got 26 jumps" :S) - but it would be nice to know/learn/determine too, maybe a little more out of this one, where clearly we have the ability to as well.

Anyone got any of the more pertinent details perhaps, to all this?

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

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Article quote: "... his emergency parachute opened too early... "



"causing him to drift off course." Too funny.
could be if it was a round reserve


But it was a square ;)
"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

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Not a terrible story for a local TV station. I loved this quote: "He has done a lot of jumps. He has been jumping for a year and he said this was his 26th."



acording to the news article this was a night jump - of course that is not true either

St Mary's is not exactly a skydiving mecca, I figure that if the news media doesn't know you then you run a fairly good DZ otherwise they would have been there before and included those facts in the article
Give one city to the thugs so they can all live together. I vote for Chicago where they have strict gun laws.

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>Would the person who moved this thread from the Incidents forum to
>Safety and Training kindly explain the reason(s) for this move?

The purpose of the Icidents forum is to report, discuss and learn from fatal and serious non-fatal incidents. This was neither fatal nor serious, and is more a safety issue.

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I'll give the kid some credit. Regardless of how the problem started he did a few things right.

1. He said he recognized at 1,500 feet he wasn't going to make it back to the airport and identified a "large" alternate landing area. At 26 jumps he didn't have the skill to land in it but good effort for trying to find an out. Sure he might have done it higher but 1,500 is better than 150 feet.

2. He followed appropriate "tree landing" procedures by protecting himself and holding onto a branch and waiting for help.

All in all pretty good from someone with 26 jumps. I wonder if this was his first jump as an A license holder? If so what a memorable one!
"We've been looking for the enemy for some time now. We've finally found him. We're surrounded. That simplifies things." CP

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In the video you can see the reserve pin cover flap a couple times before the pilot chute comes out. Not knowing any better I'd guess the pin was partially dislodged and came out as the rig was shifted about in freefall. Useful tips that are irrelevant if I'm wrong but still good advice:

1) Check your reserve pin for proper seating.
2) Make sure you use a reserve ripcord with a correctly sized cable for the harness/container you are using
3) Try to jump a rig that has flaps that don't come open in freefall.

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I'll give the kid some credit. Regardless of how the problem started he did a few things right..................



And, no low, last minute, panic mode, hard hook turn to avoid a tree, followed by a loud thud!!

Nice Job! You landed in a tree and you lived to jump again. Lesson learned by all of us. (I Hope!)
Birdshit & Fools Productions

"Son, only two things fall from the sky."

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In the video you can see the reserve pin cover flap a couple times before the pilot chute comes out. Not knowing any better I'd guess the pin was partially dislodged and came out as the rig was shifted about in freefall. Useful tips that are irrelevant if I'm wrong but still good advice:

1) Check your reserve pin for proper seating.
2) Make sure you use a reserve ripcord with a correctly sized cable for the harness/container you are using
3) Try to jump a rig that has flaps that don't come open in freefall.



Ive jumped a borrowed rig that I had to be careful how much I arched, because the reserve ripcord was short enough that a good deep arch could have dislodged the pin.

Was a problem for me, not for the owner of the rig...
"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

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Quote from article comment "schimingin 1 day ago
That sounds like a lot of fun!!"

Well at least they had some positive results from the story.

I still can't figure out how he missed the landing area from the video. I suppose they may have been downwind to begin with.
Blue Skies, Soft Docks and Happy Landings!
CWR #23
(It's called CRW, add an e if you like, but I ain't calling it CFS. FU FAI!)

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According to the email sent out by the dz yesterday, his AAD was sent to a higher altitude than normal (dont know what brand, dont know what altitude), and it fired.

The email also made sure to point out that he was either going to land in that tree or the swamp. (I know the few times I jumped there I was really uncomfortable with landing out because of the lack of options.)

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Hi amstadler,

Quote

his AAD was sent to a higher altitude than normal



Reminds me of a good friend of mine who used to jump with an ASTRA AAD. He forgot to turn it one & asked another jumper in the plane to turn it on for him.

Oops, he was open ~3500 ft on his reserve. :o

I only found out when he called to see if I had a new cutter in stock.

JerryBaumchen

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