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Thread for "Checking in after jumps" (from Incidents)

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I don't really get where the problem of checking-in after a jump is and why people are arguing against it. E.g. tapping on a screen during walking back to the packing area, should be no biggie at all for everybody. Or what do I miss? I can say that we had some off landings and nobody really recognized sometimes.


No biggie. It's a cost/benefit analysis.

Benefit - you might identify when someone has landed out. This would be convenient for the jumpers who have landed out. Historically it won't save lives or anything.

Cost - more time for jumpers, more cost to the DZ. (i.e. you have to spend time identifying jumpers who land out, and then you have to do something - which means more time for an employee.)

There are lots of things you could do to improve safety. You could have a rigger (or designee) to check every single person's gear before they get on the airplane. No biggie, and would probably have a moderate impact on safety. (The recent triple fatality comes to mind.) Or you could require all jumpers to do a quick hanging-harness training each morning. No biggie, and probably have a moderate impact on safety overall. (Again, look at the number of late/low/no cutaways that result in fatalities.)

At some point, of course, people are going to start heading for a different DZ. "I want to jump, not do all that BS!" So DZ's will have to evaluate all that and decide what works for them.

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billvon

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Cost - more time for jumpers, more cost to the DZ. (i.e. you have to spend time identifying jumpers who land out, and then you have to do something - which means more time for an employee.)


I think regardless of a check-in system the DZ should identify jumpers who land off and do something about it?! It just makes it safer and easier to recognize it. The only cost I can think of is an system such as a touch screen and software to display all the names on a load. The system should actually even could safe time for the person who otherwise needs to spot all and then maybe ask some people for missing jumpers.

billvon

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There are lots of things you could do to improve safety. You could have a rigger (or designee) to check every single person's gear before they get on the airplane. No biggie, and would probably have a moderate impact on safety. (The recent triple fatality comes to mind.) Or you could require all jumpers to do a quick hanging-harness training each morning. No biggie, and probably have a moderate impact on safety overall. (Again, look at the number of late/low/no cutaways that result in fatalities.)
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In my opinion it is a difference if the potential failure is something you can directly do about it (such as packing or gear failure) or something that just will happen to you at some point (as landing out). Sure, there is always something you can do to not land out, but I think you can what I mean.

But I also (probably) understand that you mean that either the DZ can be "made" responsible for something as taking care that all jumpers are coming back safely or the jumpers by themselfes should be responsible (as e.g. doing gear checks to each other) and there is a point where the DZ should not be "made responsible for".

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The other cost is what the DZ does when someone doesn't check in. Now they have to devote resources to finding that person. If the person can't be found right away, they have to devote even more resources, up to and including shutting down operations and calling the authorities.

99.9% of the time it will be someone forgot to check in and left the DZ. Years ago I was on the verge of shutting down a large boogie at my DZ because we couldn't find a wingsuiter who landed off. My buddy and I spent about an hour walking around the area where we believed he landed. We had one of the planes fly over looking, too. Turns out he walked back, threw his gear in his car, and went to lunch. His cell phone battery had died so we couldn't call him, either.

- Dan G

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>I think regardless of a check-in system the DZ should identify jumpers who land off and
>do something about it?

Sure. Most bigger DZ's have a guy with a truck (or equivalent) whose job it is to fetch jumpers. Seems to work without a checkin system.

>The only cost I can think of is an system such as a touch screen and software to display
>all the names on a load.

Well, but then you need someone to actually do something about it. That ranges from having someone responsible for hunting him down (another head, a minor to moderate cost) to shutting down jumping until they are found (a big cost.)

>In my opinion it is a difference if the potential failure is something you can directly do
>about it (such as packing or gear failure) or something that just will happen to you at
>some point (as landing out).

Isn't the goal reducing injuries and fatalities? I mean, again there's a cost and a benefit. If the desired benefit is "well, then we know who landed out" then there's not much benefit. Maybe some jumpers are really interested in who lands out, but a) people pick up jumpers who land out without a checkin system right now and b) as far as I can tell, the lack of such a system has never cost a life (or even reduced an injury.)

And again, I have nothing against a check-in system. It's worked well for a lot of the bigways I've been on, and I've often employed an informal version of such a system. I'm just not sure that DZO's will see much value in it, and I'm not sure it's useful in terms of preventing injuries or fatalities.

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There is no argument that with a no-pull fatal, the only difference made by such a system is reducing (maybe) the time to find the body and know that there is nothing else that can be done for that jumper. KNOWING where they are and that there is nothing else that can be done can be of high value to friends and family.

There is little agrument that impack of someone not checking in after jumping at a location with such a system is costly to the DZ until the culture is changed and everyone checks-in out of habit.

For me, this topic is VERY similar to seatbelts. When I started, (almost) no one had them, they were going to be expensive to install and impossible to enforce. Now (most places in the US) has them standard and most jumpers understand that having such a system in place helps to increase their OWN safety. Your inconvenience of being belted helps keep me safter since you are less of a meat-missle if we have a hard landing. And a couple years after their use as made standard, we were (mostly) all using them all the time without issue.

AAD's - same basic issue... They're bad -> you should -> you must use them.

If _I_ don't make it back, I'd like SOMEONE to take a look as to why, and as many of my jumps are solo, there has to be someone who would notice...

If its fatal, well, I'd like to think that they could tell my family why I didn't show up that night.

But MUCH more important to ME is if I'm hurt, it would be nice to think someone might be looking to see why I haven't returned. Don't we tell students that if they're hung in a tree or powerline, wait for help, don't try to climb down on your own?

A tight out-landing years ago sent me to the hospital (not bad, but could have been)... fortunately it was near a road AND the DZO sent drivers out to find us because he paid attention to the loads and who did/didn't make it back.

I have been at DZ's where they wouldn't even ask for drivers when they KNEW someone landed off. And yes, I've left DZ's because of attitudes like this.

So, like seatbelts and AAD's. I'd like to see this kind of system, not just because I worry about you, but because I'm selfish!! I want someone to look for me when I'm having a bad day.

All this system needs to succeed, is for more people to realize that its in their own selfish interest to have it, and insist on everyone using it (the only way its going to work).

?Maybe a voluntary self-service board at first... "if my tag is on this board 15min after the load lands, please look for me" type system??

Just my $.02
JW
Always remember that some clouds are harder than others...

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>?Maybe a voluntary self-service board at first... "if my tag is on this board 15min after the
>load lands, please look for me" type system??

Sure. Or get a weatherproof tablet and mount it somewhere outside (NOT inside manifest) and let people do that; then you could have an automatic alert if their "tag" is there for, say, an hour.

Or integrate it with manifest so people could voluntarily check themselves off the manifest when they land. It would take a little software work to integrate with manifest, but I'm sure you could recruit another jumper with the SW skills to pull it off.

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