At a P3 event we had a great group of experienced skydivers doing a terrific bunch of jumps at Skydive Perris…
Before the first jump they were all forced to listen to my (obnoxious) extended safety briefing…
expect everything that could go wrong to go wrong, on every jump
My safety brief, in a nutshell, comes down to telling everyone to expect everything that could go wrong to go wrong, on every jump, and then going through a dozen of those different possibilities. I also remind them that when I do these safety briefings everyone thinks I’m talking to everyone else. They think there’s no way they would ever be that complacent.
The person that was saved by their AAD thought they had a hard pull and tried to get their pilot chute out a few times. (There was no actual problem with the pilot chute; it came out easily on the ground). Next, with the pilot chute still in the pouch, they cut away, then had trouble finding their reserve handle… time flew by… AAD save!
everyone thinks I’m talking to everyone else
Please do yourself a favor. When you reach back to deploy, do it like you expect to have a hard pull. Practice your emergency procedures as if you knew you were going to have a malfunction on the next jump. Be aware under canopy as if you thought everyone was trying to get you.
It’s really not that hard to play it safe.
And I’m talking to you.
