And you thought you had a bad day.
Thank you for posting the link–I saw just ennough of the Today show (or whichever one is on CBS) to know that something unexpected had happened to a skydiver and was “coming up next” but it didn’t come up before I turned off the TV, and I’d forgotten that I was a little curious as to how unnewsworthy the something unexpected was.
I guess it wasn’t so unworthy of being news as I thought it might be.
Heard this on the radio this morning. You wouldn’t want it to happen to you, but it’s not that surprising he landed ok. The chute had already deployed. If he’d done absolutely nothing, he still would have probably got down ok. And only if he panicked enough to actually disengage the chute would he really be in trouble.
Wasn’t he headed for a house and a large tree? He managed to steer away from those obstacles and land in the middle of a field.
Pulling the chute is the easy part, though I’m sure he was glad that it was already done. You can get seriously injured if you don’t land properly. You can slam into a house, tree, car, parking lot while moving at a pretty decent clip. You can change the parachute’s attitude and slam into the ground. You can just land funny with a 180lb guy strapped to your back and break both your legs.
To land safely, you need to steer to a clear area, and pull the steering handles at the right time to slow your descent just before landing. It’s not “hard” but he only got one chance to do it, and had never done such a thing before in his life.
Well I’m not an expert, but I did hang out with some skydivers for a few months and did a few jumps. So here’s my opinion until someone who knows more comes along:
[ul]
[li]Even if he’d hit something like a building or a tree he would probably have been ok. You’re not moving that fast with modern chutes.[/li][li]I’d be surprised if there was anything dangerous in the vicinity to land on.[/li][li]Modern chutes are very easy to steer. Even with just one control he’d be able to direct himself about.[/li][li]Even if the instructor had died before the chute was open, I suspect it was programmed to automatically deploy at a certain altitude.[/ul][/li]
The guy did well not to panic, but I’m really not surprised he was ok.
On preview:
I’m aware of all that and am sure he could have broken something if he was unlucky. I’m just not that shocked that he wasn’t unlucky. I saw a girl do a static line jump once who panicked and didn’t touch her cords once. She came down hard onto gravel, but was basically fine.
It really isn’t hard, and everyone goes through doing it for the first time with one chance to get it right. Apart from the girl above all the other first time jumpers I’ve seen landed fine.
Pharr knew that something was wrong and that the instructor was in need of medical attention. Had Pharr landed in a tree, it would have proved somewhat difficult to administer CPR (which he did on the ground in the field, unfortunately to no avail).
Also, from the AP:
I’m not sure how sensitive those toggles are, but once you get into a spin, you’re in for a rough landing.
Good on him. I’m still not surprised he landed ok.
On about my third jump my instructor told me to pull hard down on one of the toggles and keep it held down for awhile (as a joke). You go into a tighter and tighter spin and it can be quite alarming. However it’s easy to stop - you just let go of the toggle.
First time jumpers do static line jumps all the time. This is when you are on your own and the chute deploys by being pulled out of the bag by a line attached to the plane. You are entirely in charge of your own steering and landing. Your first jump comes after a couple of hours training. Almost all of this is about how to jump out of the plane and, most importantly, what to do if your chute doesn’t deploy or deploys badly. Hardly anytime is spent on steering and landing, as it’s basically very easy.
I’m an experienced jumper (over 1,000 jumps), and I’m not too surprised he landed OK, but the potential for serious injury, or even death, was certainly there. A tree landing could have been bad- one or both legs (or arms) broken, or at the least a branch between the legs at 10-15 feet/second. I was taught to cross my feet if I was going to land in a tree.
Some tandem instructors teach their passengers how to steer, but this guy clearly didn’t receive that training- he said he remembered how from tv. He kept his cool and showed good presence of mind. Holding one toggle down and spiraling in could have hurt him bad, but it probably wouldn’t have killed him. As Petrobey Mavromihalis said, “it’s easy to stop - you just let go of the toggle.”
Pulling both toggles down just before landing (called a “flare”) softens the landing quite a bit. His no-flare landing had as much potential for injury as anything, short of striking a large object, and he managed to steer away from any of those.
So he’s lucky he didn’t get a sprained ankle or wrist (and possibly worse) on what must have been a very awkward landing, and he did a good job of remaining calm, but coming down under an open canopy into an area free of obstacles, I’m not very surprised he was OK.
Missed the edit window: I don’t mean to downplay his role in avoiding obstacles. Striking a large object such as a building, a vehicle, a tree, or worst of all, power lines could have been disastrous.
Yeah, talk about dead weight.
From what I read the instructor was already dead by the time the guy landed, hence him trying to give CPR. And it also was said that he only had access to the right pulley thingimajigee so he could only make right turns or something?