First jump, jumper did not touch toggles! Opinions

[pack40 0]

This weekend we had a student jumping her first.

Course: round static-line
Rig: Round main (steerable), Round reserve (steerable), Cypress, RSL
Altitude: 1000m
Plane: UTVA-66 (Pilot + jumpmaster + 3 jumpers)

Spotting was all right jumpers were nicely descending.
My instructor was giving talking to them on the radio.
While walking towards a first jumper observing his landing, first I saw she is making slight turns. Later I only saw that she is drifting away in the wind. It was a bit strange as she was not the skinniest woman I have ever seen. Than I was worried a bit how will
she land in backwind with her weight (I do not have problems with people c/w little overweight).
She landed 2 meters away from the fence of the airport, the canopy was outside the lines on the barbed wire, jumper inside. Luckily she was OK, canopy was OK, lines were ~ OK .

Later I heard that she did not even touched the toggles! They were in place as velcro kept them there.

Not to mention that we still have in Hungary a compulsory aeromedical examination same as for PPL license. And when we argue that why skydivers has to have medical examination they say it is necessary. They f**k with you, they cruel with older jumpers or any jumper with even minor medical problems. Yet they
can say OK to such a student (again I personally have no problems with her).

After a long introduction what can you do to prevent this happening again? It was really scare to think what would have happened in an emergency situation.

OVER

[Kris 0]

In short, there's nothing you can do. You can train the hell out of them but, you can never predict what they'll actually do in the air.

I've had students that worried me during ground school do incredible in the air. And I've had students that were completely on top of everything in the class, the practicals, and in attitude do things that gave me nightmares.

Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and
Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

[pack40 0]

The question that how somebody is fit mentally and physically for skydiving, and how can an instructor determine that always interested me.

I know that like 30-40 years ago a student course in Hungary was 40 hours or more of theoretics plus practice (PLFs, gymnasium, physical education). I know that nowadays you can not do that as now skydiving is also controlled by the laws of the market.
I do not say that the prevous military like system -actually it was a para-military organization- was better, but I feel that with much more training such situations could be avoided.

Also I got a book a skydivers' manual or training book from 1956. The information it contains could
nearly be enough nowadays for a half of a instructor course. OK that too long to learn for a student.

But, sometimes I wonder that if I would be an instrucor I would teach much more to students
even if they jump only once.

I think that if the woman mentioned above would pracitce for days (landing procedures, hanging in a harness imitating turns ETC. ETC.) would have performed better.

OVER

[riggerrob 558]

I doubt if a medical exam or more training would have made any difference on this woman's skydive.
There are three possible explanations on why she did not touch her steering toggles: sensory over load, low blood sugar or poorly adjusted harness.

All students experience sensory overload. The brighter/more athletic students wake up in time to steer themselves to a good landing.

Low blood sugar is a common problem. The adrenaline that races through your veins during a skydive burns up blood sugar quickly. If you have been scared since yesterday, chances are your blood sugar is low before you ever board the airplane. I have seen tandem students faint - or even worse, vomit - because of low blood sugar.
There is also a stupid old-wives' tale about "skipping breakfast so you won't vomit."

Finally, if your student's harness was too big, she would not be able to reach her steering toggles.