Skydiving employee fined by FAA

[faulknerwn 36]

Out of curiosity - did it have hip rings? From the various rigs I've jumped, it seems that rigs with hip rings can have leg straps which move way farther and make it easier to fall out the hole than ones without.

[airtwardo 6]

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Out of curiosity - did it have hip rings? From the various rigs I've jumped, it seems that rigs with hip rings can have leg straps which move way farther and make it easier to fall out the hole than ones without.

Quasar ll, and yes it has hip rings.

I should have played more with it prior to jumping, it has the leg-strap loops for a bungee but I didn't realize how much they move until the back-loop.

Thinking about 'the hole' some more, I had a 1st generation wonder-hog in the 70's that I was flexible enough to slip out of on the ground.

Had it made into a solid saddle for shooting accuracy pretty quickly anyway, never had a problem with it.

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

[stratostar 5]

Granny is sticking up for her TI as of Monday the 8th.

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2012/10/08/grandmother-defends-her-instructor-despite-faa-fine-for-safety-violation/

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[matthewcline 0]

She really has no clue. "Hero"? Really? The dude is a ZERO. He got lucky after being lazy and unprofessional, and it was the normal mode of operation there.

I do not understand people who still defend the DZ, DZO, or T-I. Nor do I understand any who work there.

Matt

An Instructors first concern is student safety.
So, start being safe, first!!!

[stratostar 5]

Agreed.

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[skyjumpenfool 2]

I'd like to contribute to a fund to buy her a second skydive. Show her the difference?

Birdshit & Fools Productions

"Son, only two things fall from the sky."

[pchapman 261]

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Granny is sticking up for her TI as of Monday the 8th.

A sort of Stockholm syndrome!

[JohnMitchell 14]

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Granny is sticking up for her TI as of Monday the 8th.

A sort of Stockholm syndrome!

No, because in the Stockholm Syndrome the victim is held securely. Obviously not the case here.

[theonlyski 3]

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Granny is sticking up for her TI as of Monday the 8th.

A sort of Stockholm syndrome!

No, because in the Stockholm Syndrome the victim is held securely. Obviously not the case here.

ZING!

"I may be a dirty pirate hooker...but I'm not about to go stand on the corner." iluvtofly
DPH -7, TDS 578, Muff 5153, SCR 14890
I'm an asshole, and I approve this message

[LyraM45 0]

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She really has no clue. "Hero"? Really? The dude is a ZERO. He got lucky after being lazy and unprofessional, and it was the normal mode of operation there.

I do not understand people who still defend the DZ, DZO, or T-I. Nor do I understand any who work there.

Matt

She was probably told things like there was no chance of her falling out of the harness because if she could have, she would have. Must have just been an unfortunate occurrence, as "these things can happen sometimes," and he "saved her life."

Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

[mjosparky 3]

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Granny is sticking up for her TI as of Monday the 8th.

A sort of Stockholm syndrome!

No, because in the Stockholm Syndrome the victim is held securely. Obviously not the case here.

Nice John, nice but cold.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[davelepka 4]

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Granny is sticking up for her TI as of Monday the 8th.

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A sort of Stockholm syndrome!

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No, because in the Stockholm Syndrome the victim is held securely. Obviously not the case here.

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Nice John, nice but cold.

That is funny, but there is truth in there as well.

Granny is sticking up for the TI? Who cares, what the hell does granny know about skydiving, safety, proper procedures, etc? Who made her an expert such that she can comment as to the 'quality' of service she recieved?

Was the TI a nice guy? Could be, ask granny, she knows that. Was he funny? Ask granny. Polite? Repectful? Did he smell good? All things you can ask granny, and she will be the expert when it comes to those areas.

His performance as a TI? With no previous experience, and no industry knowledge. granny is not the person to consult. Her survival, despite what she may think, is no indication of the TIs performance. We all know that there is a high degree of luck involved in her survival, so with that being her primary metric for judging her jump, you can't put much weight in her opinion.

Show me the TV interview where Bill Booth defends the TIs actions, and I'll change my opinion of the situation.

[sky4meplease 0]

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If you adjust the harness correctly and don't cave to the pressure to take body types that should NOT be going skydiving them you never need the y-mod.

Leaving out disabled tandems who certainly need one, the y-mod is designed for lazy instructors, and out of shape pear shaped students. No one has ever fallen from a properly adjusted harness.

You don't think disabled tandems should NOT be skydiving? That could be considered out of shape.

Elderly people could be considered out of shape too.

Not too long ago we determined hyper flexible people can come out of a harness as well.

So if we don't let disabled, out of shape, pare shaped, hyper flexible, elderly or over weight people jump out of airplanes then we can damn near kiss tandem skydiving goodbye.

And I will be forced to start hooking again.

Overkill is under rated.

[matthewcline 0]

I know several disable skydivers who will fly rings around you all day.

Dana Bowman, Max Ramsey, any member of Pieces of 8 for starters.

He was saying the Y-strap is not needed if adjusted proper for those that fit skydiving, exception, those who are disabled who may need the Y-strap since they might lack a limb.


Matt

An Instructors first concern is student safety.
So, start being safe, first!!!

[airtwardo 6]

... exception, those who are disabled who may need the Y-strap since they might lack a limb.


Matt

Or two.

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

[skypuppy 1]

Back in the 80's when back-to-earth flying was becoming all the rage, visiting Roger Nelson's dz near Chicago I remember seeing a picture of one of the freak brothers on his back with his legstraps up around his knees and the bottom of his rig riding up around the back of his neck. Even tho' we habitually wore our rigs a bit looseto be cool, It was sort of a scary pic at the time. I think it might have been in skydiving or parachutist magazine, too, but I think I saw it on the wall of the office.

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[sky4meplease 0]

That's a great photo Airtwardo.

I think almost anyone can jump given they have the right instructor, gear, weather and attitude.

Overkill is under rated.

[robinheid 0]

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The fact the FAA took action is extraordinary in its self.

No kidding, the fine is light considering what could have happened, but it is also the start of a slippery slope.

"We saw that you didn't give the student a drogue release, here is your fine..."

We need to push out the likes of instructors that can't bother to properly fit a harness, and Tandem factories that don't give their instructors the time to do so.

I would rather us do it internally, but that isn't happening.

This is the first time I have heard of direct FAA action against the TI, has other instances occurred?

I'm curious, anybody know if this is the first time such action was taken by the FAA?

I can't immediately recall them ever being involved like this before.

They haven't -- and in concert with the PLA "initiative," it's clear that the FAA is seeking to impose direct regulation on parachuting.

This is a way for them to establish a precedent by going after someone no one (including USPA) will defend.

And like merry sheep, we feed our little lamb to the wolf, hoping he won't come for us next.

This fine should be resisted not only by the TI but by the USPA itself, and the tandem manufacturers because, you know, who exactly in the FAA made the determination of violation? Where is the due process?

This is a process threat to sport parachuting hiding under the sheep's clothing of busting an alleged bad apple.

Well, guess what, folks? By going after a TI on a non-USPA Group Member DZ, they are cutting him out of the herd because they know he won't be defended and then they have their precedent.

Bye bye tandems within five years if the USPA and all of you holier-than-thous let this stand.

DZs better start getting their static line systems back in working order and figuring out where they're going to sell all those turbines they won't need any more.

44

SCR-6933 / SCS-3463 / D-5533 / BASE 44 / CCS-37 / 82d Airborne (Ret.)

"The beginning of wisdom is to first call things by their right names."

[mjosparky 3]

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They haven't -- and in concert with the PLA "initiative," it's clear that the FAA is seeking to impose direct regulation on parachuting.

Some of us have been saying this for years and all we heard was we were yelling wolf. The FAA is like the Gestapo…they can do just about anything they want to. Part of the reason is that the FAR’s are regulations not statute law.

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Where is the due process?

I may have missed it, do we know how he was notified. He should have been notified by Certified mail – Return receipt requested. It should state what his offence is and give him a date by which he needs to appeal.

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This fine should be resisted not only by the TI but by the USPA itself, and the tandem manufacturers because, you know, who exactly in the FAA made the determination of violation?

Do you think it is a good idea to defend a case that appears to be indefensible? Now that tandems are covered under FAR’s they may try to use Part 91.13 as a catch all.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[TomNoonan 1]

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Bye bye tandems within five years if the USPA and all of you holier-than-thous let this stand.

Hi Robin,

A couple of thoughts I wanted to add to this line of thinking.

- As scary as a concept as that is, that we lose tandems five years from now due to over regulation by the FAA, I wanted to offer a different scenario that I am not sure many people out there are aware of.

If the woman involved in this jump had actually been ejected from her harness, there would have been a 99.9% chance that the following day the FAA would have grounded tandem jumping across the United States until they figured out what to do with us........That grounding could have been a month, a year, three years, as one thing we know, the FAA doesn't rush to report on anything.

So......for all of the TIs out there, myself included, that depend on their tandem income to pay mortgages, car loans, feed their families, imagine showing up for work the next day and finding out that your FSDO just grounded all of your tandem gear indefinitely. We came that close to it over this incident.

And to be fair to the FAA, from the outside, their perspective, could you really blame them for wanting to get more involved? What did we just do as an organization in the last couple of years, we actually voted to remove the requirement to give our tandem "students" altimeters, thus reclassifing them from "students" to "passengers" as a result. When we (the tandem industry) become a commercial passenger based business instead of a training based business model in the FAA's eyes, that's when we are going to wake up and see that we have been brought under their direct control and oversight.

It's on the horizon for sure, where we go from here, remaining self regulated versus FAA controlled, is up to us at this point, but if we keep allowing things like this to happen, that choice could eventually be taken away from us.

Namaste,
Tom Noonan

www.everest-skydive.com

[Ron 7]

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If the woman involved in this jump had actually been ejected from her harness, there would have been a 99.9% chance that the following day the FAA would have grounded tandem jumping across the United States until they figured out what to do with us..

The FAA didn't shut down tandems when the fat lady fell out, or when the quad fell out. Claiming they would have shut it down if this person fell out is a bit of a stretch.

http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/Detailed/185.shtml

http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/Detailed/156.shtml

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[LyraM45 0]

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In Reply To
Where is the due process?

I may have missed it, do we know how he was notified. He should have been notified by Certified mail – Return receipt requested. It should state what his offence is and give him a date by which he needs to appeal.

Exactly. Robin is not the first person I've heard crying that there has not been due process in this.... and any other recent incidences where the FAA has been involved at Lodi for that matter. I am really sorry, but if you don't know anything about the process that happens when you are fined by the FAA, then don't say anything. Both in the aircraft fines AND this fine for the tandem instructor, everybody is given the same due process. You are notified, you have a date, and you can file for an appeal. You can request to appeal to a board.

What happened here is the instructor may not want to appeal to something he is obviously guilty of and has no chance in fighting. It's not worth the money or time. This is NOT the same of robbing him of his due process.


It's craziness to think that everybody is throwing this guy to the wolves. You held this same defensive position with regards to Bill when he screwed the pooch on the whole aircraft mx thing. I'm sorry, but if it looks like a turd, and smells like a turd, people aren't going to look the other way. Neither is the FAA. So don't make us or the FAA out to be the bad guys.

Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

[TomNoonan 1]

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Hi Ron,

I wish it weren't true, but it is. Most people in our industry don't know how close we came to that in May 2006 when it last happened. It is only through the immense efforts of the tandem manufacturers and USPA working with the FAA, that we were able to continue on the way we did without any grounding of tandems. If you remember that almost immediate "call to action" reminding tandem instructors to fit the student harness according to manufacturer instructions, that action was us (USPA) telling them (the FAA) we were on it, fixing the problem.

Namaste,
Tom Noonan

www.everest-skydive.com

[diablopilot 2]

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If the woman involved in this jump had actually been ejected from her harness, there would have been a 99.9% chance that the following day the FAA would have grounded tandem jumping across the United States until they figured out what to do with us..

The FAA didn't shut down tandems when the fat lady fell out, or when the quad fell out. Claiming they would have shut it down if this person fell out is a bit of a stretch.

http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/Detailed/185.shtml

http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/Detailed/156.shtml

No Ron, it's not a stretch. There have been off the record conversations with FAA HQ where just about exactly that has been stated.

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

[Ron 7]

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I wish it weren't true, but it is. Most people in our industry don't know how close we came to that in May 2006 when it last happened.

If true, then wouldn't it have been a good idea to disclose that information at the time? Not saying it is not true, but maybe the wakeup call then would have prevented this.

Still, I don't put much weight in "off the record conversations" unless I was a party to them, or someone I personally know was a part to it. Too much rumor potential.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334