I was saddened to read about the cause of an aircraft crash in Switzerland last month.
In a preliminary report published on 12 March, the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board (STSB) said the aircraft, belonging to Skydive Grenchen, was carrying 11 jumpers and one pilot on the afternoon of 18 February. While all jumpers, one of whom was slightly injured in the incident, exited the aircraft, the pilot died in the crash.
“When parachutists were being dropped off, the reserve parachute belonging to a parachutist who was still on the aircraft unintentionally opened,” the STSB says. “The parachutist subsequently collided with the elevator tailplane, causing it to be completely torn off the aircraft and the plane crashed.”
“The pilot was not wearing a rescue parachute,” it adds.
There's more at the link.
It sounds as if the inadvertently opened reserve parachute pulled one of the jumpers out of the plane, from where he collided with the tailplane. Nobody could have foreseen this sort of incident, or its outcome. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around how the impact of a human body could break off an elevator tailplane on one side of the aircraft. One wouldn't think such an impact would be sufficient. It would injure the person, of course, perhaps fatally, and damage the leading edge of the tailplane, but not knock it completely off the aircraft. I'm sure the manufacturers will be investigating that as a matter of urgency.
The death of the pilot was a tragedy, of course. The skydiving club had apparently bought the aircraft more than a decade ago, and he'd flown it for the club for years. It just goes to show: "in the midst of life we are in death", as the classic funeral service puts it. We never know when or where or how we may come to our end. That's a sobering thought . . . and it should be.
Peter
8 comments:
I had an acquaintance about 20 years ago who was the pilot for skydivers. On one of his flights, a skydiver had his chute open as he exited the plane and become tangled in the rudder. Many blessings that day. The skydiver spinning out of control connected to the rudder was able to reach his knife and cut the lines so he could deploy his reserve chute. The pilot knew the plane was going to crash, so he headed it into a safe location and put on a spare chute. I think it might have been his first jump. No one hurt on the ground in the plane crash and the original entangled skydiver, while beat up, also survived.
This just proves you cannot possibly 'predict' all the ways things can and do go wrong... May he rest in peace.
If the chute caught wind and snagged the parachuter out quickly, that could explain the force needed to tear the control surface off. Plane going forward, guy stopped in air, that's not a good combo.
A chute coming loose inside the jump plane is the single most dangerous and most feared accident that can happen during skydiving. Way back when, it was the number one incident we talked about and trained for. General consensus was you had a few seconds to get everybody out of the airplane if the chute got out the door and then it was all over.
At the jump park where I flew skydivers, the skydivers were taught that if a chute came loose in the plane everyone was to dive on it and hold on until we got the plane back on the ground. If it got out the door, it was everybody out no matter what the circumstances.
FormerFlyer
Jumoers are known to joke around. Messing with the pilot, aircraft, or other jumpers is not unheard of. I would consider that some joker pulled the reserve on another jumper as a joke.
I became an emergency nurse after some skydivers came down on the road in front of me. Their chute got tangled and didn't open. It forever cured me if my desire to skydive.
Thirty-some years ago, I had the pleasure and privilege to attend Army Airborne School. Great memories! One of the lessons that stuck with me was: "If your reserve deploys inside the aircraft and the door is open, you had better beat the chute out the door". Paratroopers are taught to always cover the reserve ripcord grip with the flat of their hand. I know skydiving chutes are different, I think the cutaway/reserve ripcord is on the chest harness. I can easily see the hung jumper ripping the stabilizer off the plane, he is going to hit it at the speed the plane is going x his weight. Tragic accident.
Do they still call skydive pilots "Elevator Operators "?
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