FreakyFlyer

Someone proposed a mandatory stand-down period of 24 hours after a death, and while I can completely agree with doing something like this out of respect and can’t understand why it would be so unreasonable for those who want to jump in someone’s honor to have to wait a day, even if you aren’t someone who agrees with this, I can’t figure out how any dropzone can think it is reasonable to send jumpers back up when they haven’t had enough time to determine what really happened or at least rule out equipment error—the owner of the dropzone himself was quoted as saying “We don’t know what happened”. Isn’t this the second death at this specific dropzone in just a few months from neither chute opening properly? How can they be sure enough to bet other jumpers lives that there isn’t something wrong with their parachutes? Did the dropzone disclose that someone had just died to everyone jumping that day? If I found out after jumping someone had died the same day, it would really screw up my head. I’m not talking about is it or isn’t it more respectful to stand down or to jump again as soon as possible, I’m asking why the hell isn’t anyone talking about whether or not it is safe? The part I find disrespectful isn’t as much on behalf of the jumper who died, but in a dropzone not waiting long enough to make sure any possible problem has been solved for the sake of all living jumpers.

I am new to this forum and will confess I haven’t even made my first jump. I am someone who likes to research everything before I “jump” into anything. I am honestly deeply disturbed by some of the statements which have been made on this board, and can’t figure out how these policies or perspectives could be the norm… I’ve noticed many posts blaming the student for some combination of panicking, for reacting to adrenaline, spinning &/or not properly arching. I would think any combination of these reactions could be a very natural and somewhat common reaction for someone with little skydiving experience. Is there really nothing that can be done for a student if this happens? Someone apparently affiliated with Spaceland said “he was jumping with an instructor and they hold onto you and instruct you, but you’re on your own for the canopy deployment”. Yet I’ve also read that not pulling is a fairly common problem for new jumpers. One instructor on this list made a comment to someone that “you were not the best of students because your JM had to come save you more than once”, which makes me think this isn’t all that uncommon. Is a student really on there own out there? Then there is the question of whether the pack fit correctly, several posts have addressed that other people have had problems pulling these chutes. While you can say it’s the student’s responsibility to make sure their pack fits correctly, isn’t that kind of like a theme park blaming a patron for not verifying the rollercoaster track was complete? We place our lives in the hands of professionals, and assume they have the ability to see hazards we might never catch. I guess all in all, what I’ve been reading has just shaken my faith in the sport, a sport I thought was incredibly safe. I am disturbed by a mentality which seems to care more about the sport than the people involved in it. I am not saying this is true of all instructors and jumpers, I have seen some on this site which seem very thoughtful and safety conscious, but it seems the majority are offended by the questions even being raised. That scares me. Isn’t this the place for such discussions?