Mandatory Administrative Leave

[MakeItHappen 15]

Mandatory Administrative Leave

Recently, several people have suggested to USPA that a mandatory administrative leave be imposed upon rating holders that are involved with a student fatality.

Before you get all excited about this, there are recognizable differences between say a student that has a heart attack and dies on a jump and one that goes in because the equipment or instruction was incorrect.

The questions to answer include and are not limited to:
- Did the actions or in-actions of an instructor contribute to the fatality?
- What timeline would be needed to determine culpability or lack thereof?
- Who should oversee the reinstatement of a rating?

In the real world, there are several agencies that have this type of policy.
Specifically, police officers are placed on admin leave or in admin positions when they fire their weapons. In the skydiving world there is no admin leave. You don't jump, you don't get paid.

Is it plausible to place a skydiving coach/instructor on a mandatory administrative leave, with no negative repercussions, until an inquiry determines that they did everything right?

Right now, our system, at least in the US, assumes the coach/instructor did everything right and the student was the most likely person to screw up.
Is that a valid assumption?

What are your thoughts on this?

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Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[jdfreefly 1]

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The questions to answer include and are not limited to:
- Did the actions or in-actions of an instructor contribute to the fatality?
- What timeline would be needed to determine culpability or lack thereof?

Well, if you have to stop and ask those questions, it's not "mandatory". USPA already has the power to revoke ratings, personal membership and group membership for accidents fitting this description, and they can do so at their discretion. Why take the power to decide out of their hands?

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Right now, our system, at least in the US, assumes the coach/instructor did everything right and the student was the most likely person to screw up.

I don't think our system assumes anything of the sort. I think it assumes that the student understands the risks of jumping out of a plane, and that the gear, the plane, and even the instructor can let them down.

Why are we always trying to move away from personal responsibility? In my mind, this is a step in that direction.

I have other issues with this idea too. Example: What if you're dealing with a small dz with 2 jumpmasters that had a fatality? What if both of them were on the jump? You could conceivably put them out of business, or cause them to go non-USPA by revoking their only instructors ratings. Two months later it's decided that no one really did anything wrong, and you reinstate the ratings, but the damage is already done.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the system that is in place now. The board has the power to deal with these issues already, and they have shown a willingness to do so.

Methane Freefly - got stink?

[tdog 0]

Question...

Except for the unfortunate tandem incidents, I don't remember seeing many incident reports for students of late.

Is this a serious problem that needs fixing?

What is inspiring this?

[Pulse 0]

I see this as a decision that should be done at the drop zone level. By people who know and work with the person in question. I don't carry a lot of faith in organizations to make decent decisions in regard to matters like this.

I know, it's a simple bias.

"Any language where the unassuming word fly signifies an annoying insect, a means of travel, and a critical part of a gentleman's apparel is clearly asking to be mangled."

[diablopilot 2]

I disagee with the policy for two main reasons:

First and simplest, money. Cops are put on Paid leave. Skydivers never will be. Rarely are they ever employees either, usually being contractors of some sort.

Two, assumption by the USPA that the instructor had any liability in a fatality is irrisponsible. If we are going to continue to stand behind a waiver, and encourage people to assume their own responsibility for their actions, we must not go down this road.

If anything like this EVER comes to light I will give up my AFF rating that day and insist the USPA provide documentation that I have done so.

How many times have we seen a student get proper instruction and still make a low turn? How many AFF instructors have taught everything by the book and still had a student go fetal right out the door? We are not supermen/women, and can't prevent everything. Somtimes people, parachutes, aircraft ect. fail. Anyone who doubts that should bowl.

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[billvon 2,400]

Jan, S+TA's at one point had the power to do an "emergency revocation" of a JM's rating for up to 30 days for this very reason. Has that been removed?

[MakeItHappen 15]

More background info on this issue....

Several members asked the BOD to consider a mandatory admin leave type thing.
Even another BOD member suggested nearly the identical thing during a different discussion.

The S&T Comm discussed this for awhile and the opinions were split. So a sub-comm was tasked with looking into it deeper. I am on the sub-comm and that is what I am doing. I'm asking you for suggestions or comments on this idea.
Will it work or not work, why or why not??

Sometimes people can say something that may illuminate a different solution. That's why I'm asking for comments. I'm not going to defend or shoot down the idea either.
I won't even tell you how I view it.

I am not sure of the motivations behind this request, but it seems that they (the requesters of this idea) were not satisfied with what a RD did or did not do when a student fatality happened in their region.

There are ways to overturn a RD decision, but that path is fraught with politics that you would not believe. Even the FB is not always kept apprised of situations. By the time the next BOD mtg arrives, it's too late to do anything. Just in the past 12 months, two letters from members were not forwarded on to the comm or FB as requested until extreme pressure was put on the person not disseminating the information.

Yes it is still true that an S&TA or RD can suspend a rating for a given time period.

One thing that would change is that USPA would have to become pro-active, as opposed to the current passive state. USPA would have to actively look into a situation, instead of waiting for information to come to them.

From the member's POV, I can see where they are coming from with the mandatory admin leave and how that *might* fix a problem. But maybe the problem is elsewhere and that is what needs to be fixed.

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Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[Andy9o8 0]

I think it's a bad idea. It smacks too much of a presumption of guilt. And as someone else pointed out, if a police department's SOP is to put a cop involved in a shooting on admin leave pending IAD investigation, it's paid leave.

[Peterkn 17]

In the UK, when a fatality occurs all parachuting operations must stop immediately, and they cannot be resumed until permission is granted by the National Safety Officer (or a person authorised/nominated by the NSO).
In practice, the NSO usually attends the DZ and carries out an investigation, or he nominates someone else to perform that task. The person doing the investigation has the powers to temporarily suspend the ratings of any instructor involved in the fatality - if this is thought to be appropriate.
Whilst it is possible for parachuting operations to be resumed at a DZ the same day as a fatality occurs, this is very rare.

Personally, I think this system works very well. It's main advantage is it requires an independent person to visit the DZ and perform a "health check" on the way that it's being run, and the DZ can't start operating again until this has taken place. If there's a suspicion that an instructor isn't working within the rules than that person is taken out of circulation until a thorough investigation has been carried out.

Pete.

[kkeenan 13]

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In the UK, when a fatality occurs all parachuting operations must stop immediately,...

Whereas, in the U. S., at some busy DZs, unless the ambulance is parked on the runway, they barely miss a beat.

Kevin K.

_____________________________________
Dude, you are so awesome...
Can I be on your ash jump ?

[tombuch 0]

It’s taken me a few days to mull this proposal, partly because I believe so strongly in increasing professionalism within the instructional ranks as a means of improving safety, and partly because fatalities are so rare, and in my experience generally not directly tied to the failure of an individual instructor. My sense is that this proposal would improve our image in the eyes of just a few whuffos, without significantly increasing safety.

The bigger problem is common injuries, rather than rare fatalities. I’d like to see detailed post-incident reviews of each injury and student malfunction, but since each drop zone is locally owned and managed, that’s not something our national organization can impose. It really needs to come from the grassroots level, or the state level, and I’m not so keen on state government getting into the regulation of skydiving.

For a general discussion of me views on safety and risk culture, see Article 17 “A Safety Culture” at http://theblueskyranch.com/STA.php

Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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In the UK, when a fatality occurs all parachuting operations must stop immediately, and they cannot be resumed until permission is granted by the,...(snip),... if this is thought to be appropriate.
Whilst it is possible for parachuting operations to be resumed at a DZ the same day as a fatality occurs, this is very rare.

So if an experienced jumper dies in a landing incident on Saturday morning the usual result is that there will be no commerce on that DZ for the weekend? Makes you wonder why more and more DZs are gaining the label, "experienced jumper unfriendly."

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Personally, I think this system works very well.

Yes, but you didn't just lose your livelihood for the weekend.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

An argument could be made that a manditory leave takes a tool from the lawyer for the plaintif. If a DZO or regional rep suspends an instructor from working, that could be construed as an indictment.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

If a student dies in a landing incident who gets suspended? The FJC instructor? The j/m(s)? the radio instructor? The Tandem instructor(s) who gave the student those all important first cc lessons?

[billvon 2,400]

>Yes it is still true that an S&TA or RD can suspend a rating for a
>given time period.

I would think those would be the best people to make the call. Some examples -

A jumper exits, flares correctly, finds the only gopher hole on the DZ, sticks a foot, pitches over, and hits his forehead on a sharp rock. He dies. S+TA would recognize this was a very unusual event, and that fixing the landing area would make more sense than grounding his FJ instructor, his main/reserve side JM's and the guy on the radio.

A jumper exits, the JM loses him, he starts spinning, never pulls, and manages to grab his reserve PC when his AAD fires. This probably _would_ merit suspension of the JM and/or the FJC instructor until an investigation was carried out, but not the guy landing him.

Both those calls are probably better made by an S+TA than by fiat.

[pds 0]

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A jumper exits, the JM loses him, he starts spinning, never pulls, and manages to grab his reserve PC when his AAD fires. This probably _would_ merit suspension of the JM and/or the FJC instructor until an investigation was carried out, but not the guy landing him.

Both those calls are probably better made by an S+TA than by fiat.

what if the JM is the S&TA?

namaste, motherfucker.

[Andy9o8 0]

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A jumper exits, the JM loses him, he starts spinning, never pulls, and manages to grab his reserve PC when his AAD fires. This probably _would_ merit suspension of the JM and/or the FJC instructor until an investigation was carried out, but not the guy landing him.

Both those calls are probably better made by an S+TA than by fiat.

what if the JM is the S&TA?

Same as with any official who finds himself in a conflict of interest: the S&TA recuses himself, and someone else is appointed to act in his place.

[MakeItHappen 15]

Ok more ramblings from me....

I think what Pete said should be listened to very carefully by his US counterparts.

I think what Bill said was only one way to interpret the implementation of a mandatory admin leave policy.

Let me expand upon these and other ideas...

In the US, the FAA does not regulate most of skydiving instructors. They do have a small part in TI ratings (more on that issue later).

In the UK, the federal government, CAA, does oversee skydiving ops.
On one hand you could look to what happens in the UK as a futuristic modeling of what could happen in the US if the FAA did regulate skydiving.
OTOH, you could say that we don't want what the UK has now, so how could we prevent such a thing from happening?
One answer to this question would be to self-regulate and self impose a mandatory leave that is executed by USPA.
Then there will be the arguments about becoming the 'big brother' that you wish to avoid.... Well, it may be that USPA could do a better job at the 'big brother' task than the FAA, in the skydiving arena.
If USPA HAD to take on some 'big brother' task in order to avoid the FAA taking it on, which way would you go?
I think your answer depends upon how you see the long term vs short term solutions.

The implementation aspect that Bill mentioned needs to be clarified.
An implementation could be an on the spot suspension until some USPA representative investigates. Now in the case of a gopher hole killing a student, as in Bill's example, the local S&TA or RD, if present, could do an on the spot reinstatement of rating. No jumps lost, nothing different than what goes on today.
The difference would be the pro-activeness of USPA.
In a case of questionable culpability, the instructor would be suspended for the rest of the day, a week or whatever (up to some limit) until an S&TA, RD or BOD could assess the situation. There's no negative put on the instructor because the 'admin suspension' would be a SOP type thing.

For tandems, there is an additional complication.
This has been debated here, at USPA and at PIA levels.
There is a disparity on how to interpret the FARs.
TIs are not considered 'Airmen' by the FAA.
Yet the FARs impose some rules upon them.
This is a really long and big debate, but I will say that in 5 to 10 years, TIs will either be considered airmen or the TI parts of the FARs will be removed.
If TIs become Airmen, then expect AFFI, S/LI and IAD/I to become airmen too.
Then we are into the FAA saying what's what and possibly mandating admin leave.

If you look at this issue as a BIG picture, it is not a black and white decision.

You never know when the next Jane Melbourne will come along. (Do not buy this book - read someone's copy)

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Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

[bob.dino 0]

The Australian Parachute Federation has gone through much of the stuff you're speculating on. Jumpers in Australia have to be a member of a CASA (=FAA) approved organisation. The APF have shown themselves to be pretty decent custodians of responsibility for governing the sport. So much so, that CASA is moving towards making the sport entirely self-regulating.

You might find that making contact with the APF a useful exercise.

[dorbie 0]

Why anyone would advocate an inflexible, punitive bureaucratic system that will inevitably create injustice escapes me.

We need less of this kind of regulation, not more.

[Fast 0]

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Why anyone would advocate an inflexible, punitive bureaucratic system that will inevitably create injustice escapes me.

We need less of this kind of regulation, not more.

I think what Jan is trying to say is that more is less. I think the point you may have missed is that in the long term, if we as a sport don't have something in place, the FAA may eventually do it for us and in the case of that happening, it will most certainly be much more heavy handed.

My thought on that is that, while not perfect, the FAA eventually gets to most of the things they want to do. It just tends to take them awhile to do so.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[dorbie 0]

I hear that to justify a lot of proposals that struggle for justification on their own merits. It seems like the weakest of unproven arguments to me.

Can anyone cite incidents where there have been consecutive fatalities that this would have impacted?

Fatalities already generate analysis and reports, focusing the energies of experienced dedicated people there to take action based on sound judgement is the right approach. Rigid ill-considered mandates that affect peoples lives are not a better alternative, it's playing politics with peoples lives IMHO.