Top 3 Reasons for a malfunction.

[danwan 0]

Hi.

What do you think are the TOP 3 reasons for a malfunction.

Thanks
Dan

[fasted3 0]

Ongoing discussion about this subject in S&T:

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1744801#1744801

But what do I know?

[phoenixlpr 0]

you, you and your gear.

[riggermick 6]

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Hi.

What do you think are the TOP 3 reasons for a malfunction.

Thanks
Dan

Stupidity, bad rigging , bad engineering or #4 bad luck. Take your pick

Mick.

[shropshire 0]

#1 Pilot error
#2 Equipment failure
#3 shear bad luck

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[captain_stan 0]

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TOP 3 reasons for a malfunction.

I think that there are only 3 reasons:

1) Faulty equipment (design or maintenance)
2) Faulty packing
3) Poor body position

I think that any malfunction can be catagorized into one of these causes.

Edited to add: If you will eliminate these three conditions, then you won't have to fear "bad luck."

[JohnRich 4]

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TOP 3 reasons for a malfunction.

I think that there are only 3 reasons:

1) Faulty equipment (design or maintenance)
2) Faulty packing
3) Poor body position

I think that any malfunction can be catagorized into one of these causes.

Edited to add: If you will eliminate these three conditions, then you won't have to fear "bad luck."

Bad luck is always there, no matter how careful you are with the above. You should always "fear" and be prepared for bad luck, because sooner or later, it will come visit you. If you take the attitude that you maintain and pack your gear perfectly, and always have perfect body position, and therefore you don't have to worry about malfunctions - then you're setting yourself up for a very rude awakening. With 2,000 jumps, you should know this by now.

[captain_stan 0]

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With 2,000 jumps, you should know this by now.

Could you be any more condescending?

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You should always "fear" and be prepared for bad luck.

I couldn't be any less interested in what you think I "should" do. A belief system that involves "bad luck" is not a prerequisite for emergency preparedness.

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If you take the attitude that you maintain and pack your gear perfectly, and always have perfect body position, and therefore you don't have to worry about malfunctions

Those are your words, not mine, so please don't project that concept onto me. I'm worried enough about malfunctions, but "Bad luck" is not on the list of things I fear. Nobody performs perfectly, and that's why we have malfunctions. I try to maintain my equipment, pack carefully, and keep a stable body position. I carry a reserve and rehearse my emergency procedures in case I personally fail in these priorities, not becaue I believe in "bad luck." If such an emergencey even existed, would a "bad luck" malfunction require some higher degree of preparation? I think that crediting "bad luck" as a cause for malfunctions distracts us from paying better attention to the real causes.

In my experience as a coach course director and instructor certification course director, I have never seen any sylibus reference to "bad luck," nor have I ever been compelled to teach my students about "bad luck." And in all the incident reports I've read, I've never yet seen "bad luck" listed as the cause.

My understanding of your post is that you've chosen to believe in "bad luck" as some supernatural force that can cause a malfunction. That belief is illogical to me and minimizes the relevance of real-life factors that result in malfunctions and other incidents. I think we should be trying to eliminate human failure, while realizing that we will always be vulnerable to this risk.

[airtwardo 6]

#1 Pilot error = 'ya can't fly'
#2 Equipment failure = 'ya can't pack'
#3 shear bad luck = 'God hates you'


I had to translate into 'Skydiver Speak' for you...

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[shropshire 0]

That looks about right

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[councilman24 36]

Mick,

Do you mean bad rigging by riggers or by jumpers?

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[JohnRich 4]

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With 2,000 jumps, you should know this by now.

Could you be any more condescending?

It wasn't meant to be condescending. I was simply surprised that with all your experience you never attribute a malfunction to bad luck.

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My understanding of your post is that you've chosen to believe in "bad luck" as some supernatural force that can cause a malfunction. That belief is illogical to me and minimizes the relevance of real-life factors that result in malfunctions and other incidents.

Nope, not supernatural at all. But sometimes, no matter how perfectly a rig is packed or maintained, when all that line and nylon hits the air at 120 mph, things go wrong. It's just the odds. The physics sometimes throws a curve ball. Bad things sometimes happen despite our best efforts at perfection. That's what I call bad luck. Life isn't always perfect, and neither are parachute deployments. Sure, you can attribute rare malfunctions to some real-life factors, but we're not always in control of those factors. Sometimes they just happen, hence "bad luck".

[captain_stan 0]

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I was simply surprised that with all your experience you never attribute a malfunction to bad luck.

But that is indeed the case, John, and that's where we differ in opinion. I certainly expect to have a main-canopy malfunction anytime, but believe that when it happens, it will be a result of human failure.

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But sometimes, no matter how perfectly a rig is packed or maintained, when all that line and nylon hits the air at 120 mph, things go wrong. It's just the odds.

If I believed that, even when the manufacturers had done a good job and the user pulled at a safe altitude with a stable body position, I'd never pack another reserve, and I'd quit jumping.

[JohnRich 4]

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I was simply surprised that with all your experience you never attribute a malfunction to bad luck.

But that is indeed the case, John, and that's where we differ in opinion. I certainly expect to have a main-canopy malfunction anytime, but believe that when it happens, it will be a result of human failure.

There are more causes of malfunctions than just human failure. There are anomalies of physics, there are material failures, and other things, none of which are due to human error.

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But sometimes, no matter how perfectly a rig is packed or maintained, when all that line and nylon hits the air at 120 mph, things go wrong. It's just the odds.

If I believed that, even when the manufacturers had done a good job and the user pulled at a safe altitude with a stable body position, I'd never pack another reserve, and I'd quit jumping.

[muff528 3]

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Hi.

What do you think are the TOP 3 reasons for a malfunction.

Thanks
Dan

Lessee...... I've had 3 cutaways. The first one was because of careless packing. The 2nd was the result of sloppy packing and the 3rd was because of crappy packing. So, 3 for 3 from packing. (I packed all 3). I've had a couple of others that should have been chopped and given the same situations with the experience I now have I probably would. One was a blown center cell (landed it) and at least one was a veerrrrrrry long snivel (in the saddle just below 1k). Also there were a couple of rapidly spinning openings that cleared just as I was about to pull the handles. I'm sure these were caused by bad body position.

[airtwardo 6]

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But that is indeed the case, John, and that's where we differ in opinion. I certainly expect to have a main-canopy malfunction anytime, but believe that when it happens, it will be a result of human failure.

I remember reading quite some time ago that the military did testing on round parachutes, all packed and deployed in a highly controlled repeatable manner.

They came up with IICR a 1% malfunction rate for no discernable reason.

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[captain_stan 0]

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Do you think all of those malfunctions are caused only by human error?

I've already answered that, John. Any one of those could be the subject for an entire thread. Based on the choices that the average jumper makes and the way he treats his equipment, I'm surprised those things don't happen more often. We seem to have much better "luck" when we deploy our reserves, even though we depend on these to perform well in the worst possible conditions. Let's just say that I'm willing to bet my life that "bad luck" will not prevent my reserve from opening. And my main? In all of my 1400 jumps on square canopies, I have not yet experienced a malfunction. Lately I've chosen an elliptical canopy that is much less reliable because of the way it was designed (human factor again). You won't hear me blame "bad luck" when it spins-up and I have to chop. I'm confident enough in my own packing and maintenance of my reserve that I'll tollerate that risk.

***I think you're fooling yourself.

[captain_stan 0]

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They came up with IICR a 1% malfunction rate

I've never deployed a round canopy, but I'll let you know next time I have a partial inversion on my ram-air.

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all packed and deployed in a highly controlled repeatable manner.

That doesn't come close to equalling the reliability of modern ram-air main canopies in an everyday sport environment.

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for no discernable reason.

Should we be surprised when the military doesn't have a clue? Do you think maybe it was inherent to the design of the system?

[pchapman 261]

I can understand, Captain Stan, if you don't like the terminology "bad luck". But whether you call it bad luck, luck, statistics, act of the gods, fate, a malfunction not otherwise attributable to other categories, or whatever, malfunctions can happen that you can't pin on something the jumper or packer did.

(What about off heading openings? For skydivers or B A S E jumpers? Body position is often a factor, sure, but can you find a reason 100% of the time, that one could have done anything about before the jump?)

I also understand that you don't want "bad luck" overemphasized, as you stated, so that people don't stop looking for reasons and just shrug their shoulders and say "bad luck".

But I figure some of us think you have gone too far the other way, seemingly irrationally denying that there are things that no person can control about canopy deployment.

And if you try to pin everything on "human factors", that doesn't help as it doesn't discriminate among different causes -- one doesn't say everything is human factors just because it is humans who design, build, pack, and jump parachutes.

[airtwardo 6]

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I'll bet you a jump ticket that ram-air reserves perform better than that in worse, real-world conditions.

You would lose in my case, I've had a spinning square reserve malfunction...but I do see now where you're coming from.


Believe what you will, justify your opinions as you wish... I'll do the same.

Be safe!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[D22369 0]

Edited to add: If you will eliminate these three conditions, then you won't have to fear "bad luck."

***

I disagree completely with this statement, consider the fact that you toss out nylon and multiple lines into 110+mph winds - its chaos at best.

A good friend of mine who used to post here 'Chrissyliscious' was our designated packer, she was very meticulous with packing anything whether it was a student rig/ tandem/ or an up jumpers, she packed for me quite often as I was busy with students or video- I would estimate she packed for me at least 75 times - all but one were good (eliptical Xbraced)
The one that wasnt good resulted in a diving line twist of doom.

I started jumping a stilletto at 300 jumps, I figured out quite rapidly that body position played a huge part in avoiding shitting my pants situations, however... every once in a while you will get an opening that is so outside the norm that you will get a reality check - slap in the face to keep you humble.

you can have great equipment, great packing, great body position and still on occasion have a rogue opening. you can call it bad luck I suppose, I like to think of it merely as shit happens.

Roy

They say I suffer from insanity.... But I actually enjoy it.

[erdnarob 1]

<< Based on the choices that the average jumper makes and the way he treats his equipment, I'm surprised those things don't happen more often >>

I agree with you 100%. Poor packing method, lack of knowledge, poor maintenance, no preventative inspection....name it. We are lucky that we have parachutes who really are very good "boys". They (parachutes) are tolerant, forgiving, and their components have such a safety factor of resistance that you really have to abuse them a lot to get a malfunction. Now for the reserve, it is another story since reserves are packed by riggers according the harness/container manufacturer's specifications. Therefore there is no wonder why reserves have almost no malfunction if used in normal conditions. Therefore I can conclude that malfunctions are due to human error or negligence at a very high percentage (more than 90%). Last time I heard that a reserve parachute system failed was 30 years ago. It was a riser problem. The manufacturer was right away out of business.

Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

[JackC 0]

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There are anomalies of physics,

Hmmm... Schrodingers famous canopy experiment where you pack a canopy in a container and you don't know whether it's a good canopy or a malfunction until you pull. Your packed rig is therefore set in a state of undefined quantum flux between malfunction and no malfunction and the skydiver is neither alive nor dead until the measurement is made at pull time. That anomaly of physics?

[riggermick 6]

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Mick,

Do you mean bad rigging by riggers or by jumpers?

Both. Sorry for the delay I'm in Melbourne Austraila and very busy right now. Opening Costco Austraila, the first one in the southern hemispere. Come on down to Victoria Melbourne docklands and see us. It will suprise you, Australia is about to be taken buy storm. As I previously stated all three haven't changed over the years. It's all about human nature. I stand buy that.

Mick.

[riggermick 6]

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There are anomalies of physics,

Hmmm... Schrodingers famous canopy experiment where you pack a canopy in a container and you don't know whether it's a good canopy or a malfunction until you pull. Your packed rig is therefore set in a state of undefined quantum flux between malfunction and no malfunction and the skydiver is neither alive nor dead until the measurement is made at pull time. That anomaly of physics?

Wasn't that about about a cat?

Mick.


\\