Bad jump

[Wannaknow 0]

My husband did his first jump this past weekend. It did not go well and am trying to figure out why. I called the company and they said it was my husbands fault. He freaked out when it was his turn to jump. They were free falling for about 7 seconds. The drogue was deployed. When this happened it wrapped around the instructors leg. He was able to get it free from his leg and realized it wasn't filling with air. He pulled the reserve chute because the pull cord for the main chute was gone. I'm not understanding how all of this happened in a matter of 7 seconds. My husband says he was not freaked out and didn't realize anything was wrong. The owner said it was all due to my husband freaking out and the instructor felt safer deploying the reserve chute versus the regular chute. There was no pull cord to pull for the regular chute.

Not sure what to do. I really think more happened then what is being said. My husband and the instructor had to get a ride back on a guys golf cart because they landed very far away from the drop zone. On the way the instructor told my husband there was no cord to pull and the owner was going to be upset it was lost

Would love to hear from experienced jumpers on this

Thanks

[GooniesKid 0]

Wannaknow

My husband did his first jump this past weekend. It did not go well and am trying to figure out why. I called the company and they said it was my husbands fault. He freaked out when it was his turn to jump. They were free falling for about 7 seconds. The drogue was deployed. When this happened it wrapped around the instructors leg. He was able to get it free from his leg and realized it wasn't filling with air. He pulled the reserve chute because the pull cord for the main chute was gone. I'm not understanding how all of this happened in a matter of 7 seconds. My husband says he was not freaked out and didn't realize anything was wrong. The owner said it was all due to my husband freaking out and the instructor felt safer deploying the reserve chute versus the regular chute. There was no pull cord to pull for the regular chute.

Not sure what to do. I really think more happened then what is being said. My husband and the instructor had to get a ride back on a guys golf cart because they landed very far away from the drop zone. On the way the instructor told my husband there was no cord to pull and the owner was going to be upset it was lost

Would love to hear from experienced jumpers on this

Thanks

There were only 2 people who knows what really happened..the instructor and your hubby. And the DZ will most likely side with the instructor on his/her story...just saying.

So if you hubby wants to go again then i'd say go for it. Don't let 1 bad jump discourage him. I'm sure you want your stud-ly hubby to be a proud skydiver right? You know what they say about us skydivers...i'll leave that to your imagination

what to do? well there's a few choices:
1. Talk the owner into getting a free jump (probably won't work but it's worth a try.
2. Try another local DZ. Which DZ is this so i might avoid it in the near future?
3. Take hubby to a wind tunnel...that way he will get used to the rush of air and perhaps be more "relaxed" on a jump.
4. Instead of jumping how about a spontaneous weekend of wild dirty sex...just saying...just an idea.
5. Talk to instructor on what your hubby can improve on (if he needs improvement)...then have that spontaneous weekend of wild dirty sex. again, just saying, just an idea.

[BigMark 1]

And pay for video.

[unkulunkulu 0]

You mean, hire a professional cameraman to video 4. and 5.?

[SEREJumper 1]

To many variables to list. If what you say happened really did happen, then it sounds like the instructor followed his emergency procedures as trained and both he and your husband made a successful landing back on earth, good on the instructor.

You said yourself "He freaked out when it was his turn to jump", that could possibly be one of the reasons they ended up in that situation, maybe not.

If you are wondering if this is normal, probably not. Does it happen, it can. Thats why everyone signs a waiver and should realize you are jumping out of an airplane and are making the decision to do so.

What answer are you "looking" for?

We're not fucking flying airplanes are we, no we're flying a glorified kite with no power and it should be flown like one! - Stratostar

[potatoman 0]

The instructor is trained to keep things safe, reminder that he is looking out for his own life too.

Whatever you think, don't. He did what he did to "save" the situation.

BUT, do go back, and enjoy the free life. I haven't looked back in ah, 17years.

You have the right to your opinion, and I have the right to tell you how Fu***** stupid it is.
Davelepka - "This isn't an x-box, or a Chevy truck forum"
Whatever you do, don't listen to ChrisD.

[skymama 35]

Don't take this the wrong way, but it's really hard for us to critique a jump with secondhand information that is coming from someone who isn't a skydiver. Do you have video? That would be really helpful.

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[davelepka 4]

What is your concern here? It sounds like your husband jumped from a plane and landed without injury, what more are you looking for?

Did you (or your husband) read the waiver he signed? It explains that skydiving is dangerous, and nothing anyone can do can eliminate all of the risk in making a skydive. Despite that, and what sounds like some complications on your husband's jump, the gear and his instructor were able to get him safely to the ground.

What's the problem?

Edit to add - I'm sure if they had a choice, the drop zone owner and the instructor would have preferred for everything to go as planned, with a perfect landing on the drop zone a high-fives all around.

Needing to use the reserve chute is never something a jumper 'wants' to do, it's something they have to do when things don't go according to plan. In addition. it costs money for the required inspection and repack of the reserve chute, money for lost components that separate from the system in the event you use the reserve, down time for the system while it gets inspected and repacked, and down time for the instructor while they get a ride back to the drop zone from landing off-field (instructors are paid by the jump, and the added time might have put them out of the schedule for a jump or two).

The point is that nobody 'wants' things to go wrong or poorly on a jump. What we 'want' is for everyone to make a safe, injury-free landing in the event that things to go off-plan, and in this case it sounds like that it what happened.

Instead of calling the drop zone owner to complain about the jump and accuse him of some sort of 'cover-up', you should be calling the instructor and thanking him for returning your husband safely to the ground when things didn't go as planned. Their training and professionalism allowed a good result from a bad situation.

[DcloudZ 0]

If I understand correctly...

You're thinking that it's possible that there's a complete cover up story going on regarding the use of a reserve "chute" on a tandem jump that your husband made?

I guess that makes sense...

It is, after all, more likely than the alternative possibility that a mechanical system failed

"Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way." -Alan Watts

[pchapman 261]

As Dave Lepka said, what is your concern here?

But I do see where you might have concerns:

I can see that maybe a dz owner simplifies the story you are told, without sitting down and explaining it all, patiently and in great detail trying to explain the nuances of skydiving and different probabilities of different things happening.

Just a short overview might make someone feel they are being talked down to, or indeed even "lied to", if "the story" isn't "the full story in all its detail", even if that was never the intent.

Or someone might get the impression that the dropzone is making it sound like it is all the passenger's fault, on the basis of some exasperated utterance by the tandem instructor.

Bad drogue tosses do happen. A student going into a bad body position and not the trained body position may make that more likely. An instructor should be able avoid having that causing a bad drogue toss; indeed, part of the role of the instructor is to be able to outfly errors on the part of the student. Still, every instructor has probably had a bad drogue toss at some time, even if not that bad.

I'm not sure what the problem was after the drogue was freed, why it supposedly didn't inflate normally. It could have knotted on itself after the entanglement.

Again I'm not sure about the pull cord issue, what that means. Something is garbled in the translation. However, if the drogue was collapsed it might not be able to pull out the main canopy properly, in which case going straight to the reserve parachute is appropriate!

The DZ might have something to say about to what degree the passenger complied with instructions, although it is expected that first time students can't always do what they are told due to the stress of the jump. That's why they are doing a tandem and not a solo first jump, one might say.

Still, it wouldn't be totally out of the question if the passenger requested another jump, given that the pasenger didn't get anything like the long freefall that I'm sure was promised on the DZ's website. The dropzone might offer that as a goodwill gesture, whatever the fine print.

So maybe your husband was indeed a poor student in freefall from the point of view of an experienced skydiver, but on the other hand, students are expected to be dumbasses from time to time.... because they aren't yet experienced skydivers and can't be expected to always do the right thing. Instructors try to compensate for that. Usually they are successful, but things don't always work out perfectly, despite everyone's best intentions.

[skydude2000 3]

Is it me, or does this thread stink of fishing for lawyer food??

PULL!! or DIE!!

[skinnay 0]

skydude2000

Is it me, or does this thread stink of fishing for lawyer food??

That's my guess. She doesn't seem to eager to thank the instructor for saving their lives.

If you didn't want the risk, don't sign the waiver, don't get in the plane. Thankless people... stay on your couches

[cruelpops 0]

skydude2000

Is it me, or does this thread stink of fishing for lawyer food??

Hell yes she's fishing.

[pchapman 261]

She could be indeed fishing, and we skydivers like to make fun of whuffos [non-skydivers] who can't hack it, but she could also simply be wanting to understand the situation more.

Let's give an example where we are the whuffos:

I don't know much about sailing. Let's say I pay for the chance to be on a sailing boat participating in a small race for a few hours. Half an hour out, in unexpected wind gusts, the boat tips, the sail hits the water, we're thrown in the water, have to get picked up. Nobody hurt. It happens. Crew members start muttering about how the stupid passenger got in the way when they were trying to tack and adjust the sails. I know I was told to keep out of the way of the crew, and I did the best I could, but yeah, maybe I did get in the way when the crew were trying to move the sails. Everyone is really busy that day and nobody sits down with me to explain the details or why I got less sailing time than expected.

So I start asking a few questions. Some of my questions sound silly or accusatory, because, well, I don't know sailing boats. I mean, what's wrong with those people if they can't manage to keep their sailing boat upright? Why take a passenger if they can't manage that? Why sail that day if they couldn't hack the wind conditions? Then everyone clams up, because they think I'm fishing for a lawsuit. I ask other sailors, and they laugh at me, "What's wrong, you lived, right? You signed the waiver, you went out on the water, if you die, you die like us..." Um, ok, but can't I ask a few questions and try to understand what happened?


So who knows, but I'll give her a little benefit of the doubt.

[cruelpops 0]

With a user name of "Wannaknow" I think I will stick with my first assumption in that she's shopping for a paycheck.

[Southern_Man 0]

cruelpops

With a user name of "Wannaknow" I think I will stick with my first assumption in that she's shopping for a paycheck.

There are no damages.

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

[Wannaknow 0]

I thank you for your reply. I am not fishing or looking for money. My husband went out right after and bought the instructor a bottle of his choice of vodka to thank him for saving his life. The instructor stayed calm and did what needed to do. I don't know a thing about skydiving. I just wanted to know if this kind of thing happens on a regular basis. We are just trying to understand what happened. When I called the business to ask, it was all put on my husband. I don't know if we will ever know the real story I guess.

Thanks again for your reply.

[popsjumper 2]

skydude2000

Is it me, or does this thread stink of fishing for lawyer food??

THAT would be sad...spending $$$ for a lawyer for something that is going to go nowhere.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[macfrite 0]

Nothing wrong with that jump, they both got to walk away without as much freefall time as expected. I had a jump where I lost an altimeter, I was crying over a coffee when I heard the owner of the DC3 I jumped out of say he had just lost an engine the same day (made my loss sound trivial). Losing stuff is just a fact of life and a good argument for keeping "spares"

[popsjumper 2]

OK.. when problems on tandem jumps happen, it is, by far and away, caused most often by the student not performing properly.

It's rare that a tandem master would mess up an exit all on his own.

As far as exactly what happened we, and you, will never know.
a) Only two people were present
- Your husband, who, on his own, has little to no clue as to what was right and what was wrong about the jump
- The tandem master who 99.9 times out of 100 gets it right.

And yes, there is a very small possibility that everyone involved is lying, intentionally or not.

But yes, it's good that your husband recognized the tandem master for doing his job of getting hm down without injury.

Get back on the horse, eh?

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[Avikus 0]

Chance are he didn't arch as much as he needed to ... maybe grabbed and arm or something ... who knows!

Avikus - Packer and Jumper - Hate landing with the plane!

[GooniesKid 0]

Avikus

... maybe grabbed and arm or something ...

maybe he thought he grabbed an arm

[Wannaknow 0]

Thanks

I started looking online about skydiving because of the way the owner spoke to us when we called yesterday. He said my husband got freaked out end of story. He was not willing to go into detail. We just wanted to understand.

Since reading your response I see why the reserve would have been pulled vs the main chute.

[oldwomanc6 38]

Was video taken? If so, was that made available to you?

lisa
WSCR 594
FB 1023
CBDB 9

[pchapman 261]

Wannaknow

My husband went out right after and bought the instructor a bottle of his choice of vodka to thank him for saving his life.

Funny.

The old tradition, not always observed these days, is for the jumper to buy the rigger a bottle of booze, if the jumper used the rigger's reserve parachute pack job.

Wonder if the instructor passed the bottle on to the dropzone rigger.