Dont swoop Trailer..... Very ouch video... Dont know who it is

[travisjones 0]

Ouch.... Just watched this video on break.com..... Dont know who it is or where is is at but all i can say is try not to hit a trailer on landing........ Double ouch just thinking about it.....
http://www.break.com/index/skydiver-crashes-into-trailer-2086217

[nad 0]

Ouch, that has got to hurt. Even i felt that.

Its funny how the guy asks if he is okay? Yes I'm okay, I just slammed into a trailer....

So what was this guy really trying to do? He had nothing but open land to land. EDIT: Didn't read the comments, "Skydiver attempts to buzz right by his buddies on the ground as he makes his landing but ends up crashing into the side of their trailer."

[SRI85 0]

From Source who has been skydiving since: *04/30/2011* "The skydive accident that caused the loss of my left arms feeling due to nerves being severed from spine, which I am still waiting for the amputation confirmation date. All I remember is looking over at the pit and seeing the trailer and wanting to avoid it. Upon exiting the plain the winds on the ground were at 11 mph due west. Coming in on landing I did a pen check and was being blown backwards from the west and crosswinds from the north.

The winds at the time of the crash were all over, varying from west and north anywhere from 20 mph to gust of 28 mph. The GoPro camera I was using makes it look like I am farther away from the trailer than i really am. I had a small window of time to make a decision attempt to miss the trailer or due a low turn and pitch myself into the ground with a down draft and traveling at around 45 mph.

I am here posting this video so as far as I'm concerned it was the right decision at the time. In truth, I PROBABLY SHOULDN'T BE ALIVE... I DO NOT REMEMBER ANYTHING AFTER THAT ALL I DO IS WATCH THE VIDEO!"


can you believe this guy thinks he made the right decision at the right time? hes about to have his arm amputated.

[SRI85 0]

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Ouch, that has got to hurt. Even i felt that.

Its funny how the guy asks if he is okay? Yes I'm okay, I just slammed into a trailer....

So what was this guy really trying to do? He had nothing but open land to land. EDIT: Didn't read the comments, "Skydiver attempts to buzz right by his buddies on the ground as he makes his landing but ends up crashing into the side of their trailer."

anything you read on break.com has a very inaccurate description.

[baseknut 0]

Gotta love the TWANG of the aluminum after the impact.

Step into my (sub)terminal Playground

[artard 0]

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From Source who has been skydiving since: *04/30/2011* "The skydive accident that caused the loss of my left arms feeling due to nerves being severed from spine, which I am still waiting for the amputation confirmation date. All I remember is looking over at the pit and seeing the trailer and wanting to avoid it. Upon exiting the plain the winds on the ground were at 11 mph due west. Coming in on landing I did a pen check and was being blown backwards from the west and crosswinds from the north.

The winds at the time of the crash were all over, varying from west and north anywhere from 20 mph to gust of 28 mph. The GoPro camera I was using makes it look like I am farther away from the trailer than i really am. I had a small window of time to make a decision attempt to miss the trailer or due a low turn and pitch myself into the ground with a down draft and traveling at around 45 mph.

I am here posting this video so as far as I'm concerned it was the right decision at the time. In truth, I PROBABLY SHOULDN'T BE ALIVE... I DO NOT REMEMBER ANYTHING AFTER THAT ALL I DO IS WATCH THE VIDEO!"


can you believe this guy thinks he made the right decision at the right time? hes about to have his arm amputated.

Wait so he was trying to avoid the trailer? Because it looked to me like he was trying to fly directly toward it. And he just started skydiving 3 months ago and is already flying with a gopro? How many jumps did he have? What was his wingloading?

http://www.mixcloud.com/prajna
http://vimeo.com/avidya

[Remster 24]

Mad skilz.

Remster

[knic 0]

Looked like he was trying to land in the back of the trailer. seems like a really bad idea to me

- Knic

[padraigbrowne 0]

If the impact makes you cringe , you should see the whole video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha-l2qCbFms&feature=youtu.be

From taking the pilot off jump run and spotting the load down wind , being more concerned with getting cool shots with his gopro than jump-mastering the load , some very dodgy looking freefall , then trying to land so close to the trailer that he didnt have space or height to turn into wind ( if he didnt try to turn into wind he would have got little more than scratches from a fast crosswind landing and his arm would still work )

What happens after though is even scarier , the ground crew take off his helmet , rig and jumpsuit , and sit him up ( very roughly ) After the impact he took and being out cold for 15seconds and not knowing what happened , he should never have been moved .

[LetsGoOutside 0]

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Looked like he was trying to land in the back of the trailer. seems like a really bad idea to me

Yeah, the "I had to make a decision" thing doesn't fly. He wasn't exactly landing in deep jungle.

[Remster 24]

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He wasn't exactly landing in deep jungle.

It's hard to tell considering the wide angle of the camera. Maybe those bushes are really much closer in, and 50 feet tall. In fact, it could be a redwood forest. Impossible to tell.

Remster

[Faicon9493 114]

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Ouch.... Just watched this video on break.com..... Dont know who it is or where is is at but all i can say is try not to hit a trailer on landing........ Double ouch just thinking about it.....
http://www.break.com/index/skydiver-crashes-into-trailer-2086217

Watching that reminds me of an incident many years ago when I was on a demo team with 3 friends. We had a demo into mall parking lot with a tight landing area on a hot, no-wind day. One my buddies did a low turn and slammed into the side of a Winnebago RV. Luckily, he wasn't hurt too bad. It earned him the well-deserved nickname Wile E. Coyote!

[Floflo 0]

He's blaming everything on the strong winds. Look at the canopy on the ground during the "rescue"; It doesn't move. There was no wind at all.

[sacex250 0]

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If the impact makes you cringe , you should see the whole video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha-l2qCbFms&feature=youtu.be

From taking the pilot off jump run and spotting the load down wind , being more concerned with getting cool shots with his gopro than jump-mastering the load , some very dodgy looking freefall , then trying to land so close to the trailer that he didnt have space or height to turn into wind ( if he didnt try to turn into wind he would have got little more than scratches from a fast crosswind landing and his arm would still work )

What happens after though is even scarier , the ground crew take off his helmet , rig and jumpsuit , and sit him up ( very roughly ) After the impact he took and being out cold for 15seconds and not knowing what happened , he should never have been moved .

Also a good example of repetitive questioning from a head injury and altered level-of-consciousness.

It's all been said before, no sense repeating it here.

[zephyrzone 0]

I'm a low jump novice...still working on my A license, so I'm not in a position to question anyone. I've had bad things happen (not as bad as that video) in life that were 1 in a million shots, sometimes we all get really, really unlucky.

BUT

I'm having a hard time understanding what happened here. I guess he wanted to land near his buddies. It looks like he was straight-up aiming for the trailer. When I first saw the video I thought maybe he was a beginner, like me, and got fixated on the object thereby flying into it. Seems that's not the case. Super sucks that he is losing his arm, that's a BFD. I guess you can't jump with one arm.

What a bad day for that poor guy. There was just NOTHING around to hit except that trailer. Very difficult to understand this one. Just trying to show off for his mates?

[andybobolson 0]

You can jump with one arm, as the skydiver from that video has demonstrated repeatedly: http://www.youtube.com/user/1armskydiver.

[normiss 620]

Gotta give it to him for his accuracy skills though.


GOD DANGIT!

What'd I hit?

GOD DANGIT!

What'd I hit?

[xaviercomelli 0]

I just watched the full version... still cant believe it! no one was calling 911?

[BlindBrick 0]

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still cant believe it! no one was calling 911?

They can't fix stupid.

-Blind

"If you end up in an alligator's jaws, naked, you probably did something to deserve it."

[Squeak 17]

So the dude has mangled his left arm and is waiting amputation.
Did anyone else notice that he was jumping a left hand deployment system already?

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[normiss 620]

Maybe it was his good arm.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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I'm a low jump novice...still working on my A license, so I'm not in a position to question anyone. I've had bad things happen (not as bad as that video) in life that were 1 in a million shots, sometimes we all get really, really unlucky.

BUT

I'm having a hard time understanding what happened here.

It's very understandable:

Testosterone poisoning and maybe Kodak Courage leading to carnage.

He decided at a low altitude to (still) turn right to provide a more exciting landing, better video (perhaps subconsciously; I bought a second helmet without a camera mount after I noticed I didn't complete as many points as when I didn't bring a camera and was presumably putting some of my limited effort into making better video), and land in front of the ground crew. Fortunately he succeeded and made a lot of excitement!

Unfortunately he failed in many ways:

If the approach was planned he didn't spot well enough or open high enough to get to where he was going with enough altitude to fly a predictable pattern to turn at an appropriate altitude and he screwed up by going with his plan anyways. If it was unplanned he screwed up by not planning.

He screwed up by committing to a turn (right, where he needed to clear the trailer) which had _no_ outs instead of carving around the trailer in a left turn where failure would mean not landing as close to the ground crew and perhaps a cross-wind situation leading to a stumble and stains.

He screwed up by stopping his turn when he got close to the ground and flying right into the trailer instead of switching to a zero-descent flare turn which would have cleared the trailer and let him land gracefully with success or with dirt stains on failure.

Before this jump he down sized too quickly without learning how to _instinctively_ (this implies muscle memory from enough practice) flare turn where necessary. Most likely that was because he was bored, wanted to go faster, and flying his canopy straight into a wide-open field wasn't challenging enough to discourage him from trying the next size (which is all entirely rational but based on incomplete information). If he'd actually tried to make 90 degree turns from tree top height or 45 degrees after starting to flare (maybe 15 degrees would have saved him) he'd have known that controlling parachutes in other situations isn't as monotonous.

He also failed by swooping. There are some parachuting disciplines (swooping and BASE are the popular ones) which are inherently unsafe. Having done that, joined the heavy metal (metaphorically; titanium is pretty light) club, and seen death I advise people don't.

Some people have the disposition and are going to do that anyways whether they planned to or not (I swore I'd never hook turn (a few hundred jumps) or BASE (800-900)); although when that happens following accepted best practices maximizes their chances of avoiding death, life changing injuries, and/or just getting a personal orthopedic surgeon.

Having/using cajones bigger than average metaphorically doesn't mean you need to shrink your brain and loose your judgement to compensate for your other "gifts."

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What a bad day for that poor guy. There was just NOTHING around to hit except that trailer.

Willful ignorance is _not_ good for your health in high-speed sports.

After getting too close to the ground turning instead of freezing I'd have pulled my right toggle (harder? I didn't look too closely), applied enough left toggle at the same time to keep me off the ground, and lifted my left leg and leaned right in my harness to get a faster turn rate instead of leveling out straight ahead and running into the trailer. Nearly all the time I'd have pulled off a graceful landing and the rest I might have needed to wash my (black and white - you do _not_ want white leg straps no matter how good they look on video) rig at the next repack.

This ignores having the judgement to avoid the situation in the first place (left turn around the trailer so failing is less likely to hurt or kill you, not turning because you're too low...).

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Very difficult to understand this one.

It's completely understandable.

Just skydiving is doing something which "normal" people tell you is "crazy". "normal" skydivers telling you what you're doing is "crazy" sounds exactly the same.

Maybe you're being totally sensible (jumping ZP canopies with under 100 jumps when I started was considered crazy at some dropzones; or squares not rounds before that). Maybe you're being crazy for your experience level (only landing a canopy straight ahead even 1000 times in a row doesn't prepare you for flying around or over obstacles). Maybe you've definitely stepped past some line (I don't think turning like that with no outs is fundamentally different from Jeb Corliss's recent misadventure and I say that having seen Dwain Weston kill himself flying into a bridge from about 10' away with my future wife. Dying and ruining peoples' weekend like that is very rude and inconsiderate of your fellow jumpers).

Unfortunately without enough of the right experience (I think Brian Germain's 1.0 wingloading + .1/100 jumps allows for it provided that you're actually doing things like 45+ degree flare turns into the wind) you don't have enough information to make that decision rationally and too many people fall back to emotion which lumps the people being reasonable ("That's crazy!") in with the people who aren't ("That's crazy!") that sound exactly alike.

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Just trying to show off for his mates?

That may have been a contributing factor but it's not that simple.

Going fast is very fun. Tight landings are very fun. Flying around obstacles at low altitude is very fun. I'd swoop or make classic accuracy landings with a few feet of clearance with no one watching because it was _very_ _fun_. That's plenty of motivation to land near a trailer without people.

The big problem is figuring out where what you're doing is a bad idea, a bad idea for your experience level, or just something people think is a bad idea.

This ignores that sometimes broken bones are a good thing. I only know one jumper who continued being stupid enough to earn a return visit to the orthopedic surgeon and conclude that people who hurt themselves early generally wise up enough to not kill themselves or get hurt worse (I can't think of anybody who died except in a plane crash who'd spent time in a hospital before that). Lots of people (10) on my dropzone plane died in a crash returning from a boogie that my wife would have encouraged me to attend if I wasn't broken and getting around in a wheel chair at the time. This guy was on a sure path to death or worse; and was lucky enough to get off minus only one arm.

Speaking from personal experience, it's _very_ hard to identify and avoid things you shouldn't do because they're logically past your risk tolerance from things boring people (some won't even skydive!) think you should not.

The sad thing is that if you keep jumping you're likely to become a grumpy old person after seeing enough other people do stupid avoidable things and/or being one of them.

[Joellercoaster 6]

Is there some way we can sticky this? There's a lot of good advice on this site, and a lot of it is aimed at the would-be hot-shots, but it's not often someone puts it this way,

[edit: Is there any info on his gear? Could be a trick of the camera angle, but he seems to be going pretty damn fast even in straight flight.]

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[matt002 0]

Canopy looks large and square as a barn door, probably a sabre 1 or similar, it looks fast as he made a low turn and was travelling with a cross/down wind push on final (you can see a windsock in the background as he comes in.)
I have seen this a lot in less experienced jumpers.
Looking at the windsock by the truck you can see the guy has been flying down wind and only just got back to the landing area, still flying downwind and without the altitude to make the 180 degree needed to land into wind, the only safe option in this situation is to take a down wind landing, this guy panics and makes a turn to the right (cross down wind) and pays the price, at least he didn't try to make a full 180, he would then be dead.
This is one of the dangers of the 180 degree turn when swooping, in that if you mis judge your approach, you will find yourself low and needing to do a 180degree turn to land into wind (also you will be cutting off every one else flying a pattern.)

This is not a "Mad Skilz" incident.
Everyone can learn from it,

Use the accuracy trick, if you find that you are going to struggle to make the landing area, find a safe place to land off, always have a plan B, don't get fixated on plan A.

Under supervision, practice cross and then even downwind landings, they are a life saving skills and you should not be scared to use them when needed.

This jumper would be fine if he had done either of the above.


Also when you hold something up as an example of the "Mad Skilz" new guy, you instantly take away the learning value in it.
Everyone then thinks that it doesn't apply to them, even when you are that Mad Skilz newbie, you have no idea that is what you are.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Use the accuracy trick, if you find that you are going to struggle to make the landing area, find a safe place to land off, always have a plan B, don't get fixated on plan A.

Right.

Taking a second look at the long video it also appears that he flew back to the dropzone in full-flight. With the tail-wind deep brakes to minimize his descent rate and flatten his glide would have gotten him back to the landing area with a lot more altitude to work with.

It's important to be a pilot and fly all the way from deployment to your destination instead of just a passenger along for the ride as an unguided meat missile.