Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld reflects on what one skydiver’s response to a reserve deployment outside the aircraft can teach all of us
STAY CALM. The more I’ve thought about this situation the more impressed I am with how the skydiver handled it.
What Happened
After climbing out of the plane and getting ready for what I’m sure he was expecting to be a great time with him friends, he was suddenly ripped off the plane, hit the tail and found himself hanging by his canopy from the horizontal stabilizer. I can’t think of a more stressful position to be in.
What the Skydiver Did Right
He stayed calm enough to:
- Evaluate the situation.
- Recognize it was his reserve canopy and not his main.
- Realize that his only remedy was to use his hook knife to cut himself free.
- Remove his hook knife from it’s holder without dropping it.
- Continue to cut lines until he was clear.
- Deploy his main into the mess over his head. Clear it and get to the ground in one piece.
Why Staying Calm Matters
I’d like to think I would have been calm enough to respond in the same way. But I also know in a panic it would have been easy to immediately cutaway thinking it was the main or drop the hook knife in a rush.
This is a great lesson in how important it is to stay calm in every emergency situation. Every skydiver and pilot should practice being clam and visualize staying calm in stressful predicaments.
Lessons and Prevention
That being said. Check your handles during your gear check and before climbing out to be sure they are secure. Understand all the parts of any plane your jumping that may catch and dislodge your handles. Guard your handles on every climb out. If you ever see a deployment in process outside the plane, whether it’s you or someone else, get that person off the plane immediately. As with nearly all skydiving and aviation incidents, with proper precautions this situation could have been avoided and never should have happened. And get a hook knife.
