USPA and PIA Issue Joint Skydiver Advisory

Most AADs "remember" data from their last jump. Vigil data can be down-loaded immediately if you have the fancy box that connects to your home computer.
Otherwise, the AAD may have to be shipped to SSK or Airtec for download.
It is standard police procedure to impound all equipment related to a fatality and have it inspected by experts (e.g. Master Riggers).

Right on Rob,
And the report from the AAD is what is missing in the fatility report data base.
Let me ask this about the incident at Perris refered to above. Sorry 'bout using you space to ask a question of others.
If she lived at sea level and turned the AAD on at home. She traveled to Perris elevation 1320' and jumped. They are saying it fired at 100 to 200 feet above the ground. That's 1420 MSL it should have fired at 750 MSL 'cause it was set at Zero MSL. If this is true then her AAD fired some 700+/- feet to high.

Back in the good old days, most reserve containers included "staging loops made of bungee cord.
When square reserves were introduced, most manufacturers stuck with staging loops for a few years.
Then container manufacturers shifted to depending upon friction to hold the freebag until the pilot chute was definitely pulling.
Just last year, a tandem fatality led UPT to order riggers to retro-fit bungee staging loops to Sigmas.

But friction is a highly variable variable.
The other problem is that field riggers frequently ignore manufacturer's instructions.
Some of the combinations never crossed the designer's mind in his worst drunken nightmare.

For example, when I was Customer Service Manager at Rigging Innovations, a customer sent a Student Telesis container back with the complaint that it was difficult to pack. Part of the problem was that (main and reserve) closing loops were twice as long as normal and the poor container looked like a Bactrian camel!
... with two distinctive humps!!!!
Hah!
Hah!
We repacked that Student Telesis in accordance with the manual and never heard from him again.

In another case, I disagreed with my boss about how many photos to include in the Talon 2 manual. He over-rulled me to delete one photo, but a year later phoned to apologize. He said that Skyhawks had complained about slow pilot chute launches on the their Talon 2s. It turns out that Canadian Army riggers were ignoring a step that was written in the manual, but had no photo.
That just proves that riggers rarely read every word of text in manuals.

Very interesting thread. My first mal back in the day was a floater followed by no cutaway and reserve deployment on a Racer. PC sat in my burble for about 2-3 seconds...long enough to get my attention. Unless someone's changed the basic design of a spring loaded PC that'll always be a possibility.

Quote

She didn't live at Sea level, she lived 5-600 feet lower then the DZ and the CYPRES calibrated that as her elevation and never reset once she got to the DZ for the day.

I'm not sure if the Cypres ever fired at all. I had heard that she pulled at the last moment, way too low. Should be simple enough to answer - was the closing loop cut or not. She lived in a beach town and turned the thing on less than 50 ft MSL.

Here is the quote from The Dropzone.com Database:

The jumper had turned their AAD (Cypres) on at sea level then drove to a DZ much higher to jump. The AAD was not recalabrated to the new elevation before jumping.

Phree I know the incident Bill is referring to. I cannot see how that can be one of the ones PIA and USPA are throwing into the list of questionable deployments. Im sure there is no question in anyones mind gearwise about that fatality. Nothing in this advisory would relate in any way.

Quote

Phree I know the incident Bill is referring to. I cannot see how that can be one of the ones PIA and USPA are throwing into the list of questionable deployments. Im sure there is no question in anyones mind gearwise about that fatality. Nothing in this advisory would relate in any way.

Try reading the third paragraph again.

"Possible factors may include, but are not limited to...........AAD setting......"

But with that said, the 8 or so incidents that prompted this advisory, that incident was not one of the 8 or so incidents.
(Yes - I'm confused too on that.)

What has happened is that several incidents that involved reserve activation at a supposedly sufficient altitude have been lumped in with incidents where the jumper did not execute proper EPs or did not follow the proper AAD instructions. One 'answer all' advisory was written.
So what we have is a number of incidents, that have not been well defined, that all get involved with the statement put out by PIA/USPA.

Exactly which incidents those are, I don't know for sure. I'm looking into it.

.

I have read the thread, all 10 pages of it. I have searched for all references to CYPRESS, CYPRES, and SSK. While there are many there is no data from SSK. There is conversation near the end of the thread refering to the unknown results. Plerase post these results on this thread. I believe I have been told by people in the know that her CYPRES fired at 750+/-. In all fairness I have had to digest so much information lately that I may have some mixup of incidents. I would like to clairify this particular event.
However, the point remains do you want the data released or not. Simple answer Yes or NO.

Jan, that paragraph makes it make sense that this particular incident would be lumped in. Going back and reading paragraph two gives no reason to include this as it says "the jumpers struck the ground without a fully functional reserve parachute after apparent reserve activation at a sufficient altitude". How can we have reserve activation at sufficient altitude yet on this incident have it reported that the reserve was activated at 100 feet. There seems to be a lot of grasping at straws here. It seems as if USPA feels that putting out an advisory is enough. I guess it doesnt matter if the advisory makes sense or not as long as its issued.

Quote

Jan, that paragraph makes it make sense that this particular incident would be lumped in.

Yes, I agree. The list of 8 incidents in the past 10 years where a reserve was activated by an AAD and did not open before impact does not include that incident.

Quote

It seems as if USPA feels that putting out an advisory is enough. I guess it doesnt matter if the advisory makes sense or not as long as its issued.

To the best of my knowledge, right now, and I have not talked to all the players involved yet, John's major issue is that the data points (eg info on the 8 fatalities) have not been released to the public.

The major issue is, if there is a trend, show us the data that illustrates that trend.

The advisory included other trends, such as the 'wait until the AAD fires' syndrome, 'not knowing EPs', 'not knowing how the AAD works', etc.

I do not have a list of these 8 fatalities. Can someone help me find them?

.

Quote

The info is already out there if you really want to find it and it has been talked about in great detail on the forums on here.

Why should any skydiver have to wade through the pages and pages of crap that fill every incident thread to gain information that has already been collected by the organization that we pay money to? If someone found enough correlation between incidents to notify us officially that there "might" be a problem, don't we have a right to know the information that correlation is based on, the information that wasn't printed in the incident reports in the magazine we pay for?

Quote

To the best of my knowledge, right now, and I have not talked to all the players involved yet, John's major issue is that the data points (eg info on the 8 fatalities) have not been released to the public.

The major issue is, if there is a trend, show us the data that illustrates that trend.

Having this information collated into a single document vs wondering which of the fatalities in the Fatality Database are the specific 8 referred to, would be helpful. John's post suggests there is something more to this topic than the 8 fatalities, and that there exits a "list" of dangerous rigs, and discounts the PIA/USPA teaming up to collect more data (which is what the manufacturers say is taking place).

Phree is perhaps the best non-USPA/PIA source for this, as he maintains the fatality database and has a pretty good knowledge of what's there and what isn't necessarily published?

I'll re-ask Jan's question here, because I have not seen the answer to it, and maybe in all the "traffic" it has just been inadvertently overlooked?

Per John Sherman:
The FAA already knows and in fact initiated the entire study which is what I want released.


Then, Jan asks:
What FAA study are you talking about?
If there is such a document, a FOIA request should be able to produce it.
--------------------------------

I will put in for that FOIA request for us.
John - Can you specify a little more clearly and directly (perhaps by document title) in particular, what study results REPORT (document) you are looking for?

I answered Jan by private mail. There are thing I can tell her which I can't post. But here is the deal in a nut shell. Girl buys gear asks Mom to buy her a AAD and promises never to die if Mom will do it. Girl dies. AAD fired at 755' she gets line stretch too late. Mom call her friend the Senator who calls FAA who call USPA. USPA get a rig similar and presents it to the FAA. Good pilot chute launch with main closed. Takes 2 hands to dig the bag out. USPA being the astute folks they are (And I mean this) did a good job of researching the data base coming up with 8 rigs where the AAD fired at 750+/- and the reserve failed. I was contacted for root cause definition as I was familiar with this problem having been yelling about it for 20 years. I suggested to USPA that this had been going on for some time and that the data base should be reviewed for low pills no opening. They found 7 more. Their lawyer advised them that they had a legal obligation to warn the membership. An Advisory was prepared and submitted for approval which was received. There was push back from PIA in the form of the President Cliff Smucker. He along with reps from the 2 biggest offenders persuaded USPA to revise the Advisory which was done. This revision left out the offenders identification and revised the Intro. You now have that document.

John,

Many more people at PIA had input into the final advisory than Cliff and "reps from the 2 biggest offenders". I didn't see the original USPA advisory draft but was consulted on what became the final version. I (perhaps with others) suggested any reserver 'testing' by riggers be done with the main packed. This is how I found the Quasar problem. See youtube video from my basement, posted by the owner. I also suggested that procedures be used to have a fully functioning main canopy by 1800', emergency procedure initiation height, rather than 2000', minimum pack opening altitidue. This allows folks like me, that jump older style parachutes that open in less than 800' to adjust their altitudes accordingly. This was to maintain alignment with the current BSR's.

As to your comments about PIA. Remember, YOU are PIA through Parachute Labs membership. You can be as involved or inactive as you'd like. I don't recall seeing a rep at any meeting other than presymposium ones in a long time. You, Nancy or another rep are more than welcome to join the rigging committee. Just let me know and I'll see you in KY. I'm sure you'd be welcome on the technical committee but I can't speak for Dave.

As to your concern about an apperance of conflict of interest, it's hard for an INDUSTRY association to not have an appearance of conflict. But, to ally your fears, the rigging committee chairman will be receiving any reports received by PIA under the advisory as well as the technical committee chairman. The technical committee chair email is just the point of contact.

I happen to be the rigging committee chairman. For everyone's information I've never worked in the industry other than as an independant rigger and volunteer for PIA, have never made my living in the industry, I'm not a dealer for any sport equipment, I've never been sponsored by a manufacturer (please, somone), most of the gear I jump is not even on the market anymore. So, I'm about as far from a conflict as you can get. I often say it gives me an advantage at PIA because I don't care who I piss off. I hope that aliviates your appearance of conflict concerns.

Failure of reserves to deploy after low or AAD activation is a world wide problem and not limited to the U.S. I hope that we will receive information from around the world. The most troubling incident in my mind right now it the fatality a few months ago in Poland. If you can explain how that canopy ended up in that 'as found' configuration I'd love to hear it.

Terry,
Thank you for the correction about who saw the final Advisory. In that you were one of them I ask Why did you throw me and my rig, and the Mirage, and the Talon, et al. under the bus by not identifying the offending equipment and allowing a shadow to be case over all of us? Additonally, you left the users wondering about their rigs. I have recieved numerous e-mails asking what to do. Should I jump my rig is it safe? The answer is some of them are and some of them aren't. USPA won't tell us.
I only have one question. Are you for the complete disclosure of any and all information know to USPA & PIA or not?

Quote

> Does that mean that you should not jump a Javelin or Cypres because they're not safe? Only the jumper can make that call.

Are you seriously suggesting that the average jumper has any hope of evaluating the ability of his reserve system to operate within the parameters that may be required?

Most jumpers have little or no idea of what is inside the reserve container, or what it would take to be sure that what is in there would work.

I dare say that even most riggers are not capable of making decisions like the ones you propose.

Jumpers and riggers both rely on the fact that a rig carries a TSO approval as the indication that it is fit for use.

But, apparently, the TSO approval is not the clear indication that we expect it to be.

It's so much fun watching a bun fight where the buns are our lives.

Can someone please just tell us what the bloody issue is? As much as I'd like to see the USPA do what they're supposed to, the membership are mostly a captive audience so I don't really have any leverage. Having said that, I'd like to think that if there's a solution to the problem (which may be not jumping the affected system until the issue is resolved) that skydivers are given the opportunity to make an informed decision with the information which is apparently available. I just bought a new rig too, am I likely to be killed if I fuck up so bad that I find myself deploying my reserve below 1000 feet? There's a big difference between AADs not working and reserves not working. I may have the luxury of waiting for a few days because I'm not jumping, many others don't. Lots of people in this thread seem to know but apparently they're special and we're not.