Article of the month :
- Every month Daniel-Michel Holleville
relates and analyses skydiving incidents. Of course, names of people and
places are changed. -
It is a rather hot and sunny
day of May 1987 with a bit of turbulence. Cocol is 20 and a member of "The
Daltons" team which train regularly on this dropzone of the planet Skydive.
By Daniel-Michel Holleville
Cocol has made a total of 242 jumps including 50 CReW jumps and he
has the B3 license (in France, one needs this license to be allowed to
do CReW jumps and the B2 license for RW). He and Jerome, a teammate, decide
to make a CReW jump. They borrow two DZ rigs equipped with "contacts" (a
7-cell canopy designed for this discipline) and pack them so that they
can freefall a bit and make a few RW points before work under canopy. They
have the well-known yellow hook knives called Jack as in Jack the Ripper...
Jack's efficiency is universally renowned and all the CReWdogs of the planet
Skydive use it. It is 20 centimetres long and its housing is generally
set on the chest strap. However, Cocol and Jerome do not have the right
housings... They decide to bind the Jacks with rubber bands. They are in
the hangar and the manifest calls them: the plane waits for them to take
off, the engine is running and the other skydivers are ready to board.
They look at each other and decide against the Jacks. They throw them away
in their bags and board.
The white Cessna 206 with red and blue stripes is climbing. On the jumprun,
go! The 2-way RW goes well, break-off at 1800 metres and opening at 1500
metres. Jerome has very little experience in CReW and does not have the
B3 license. Cocol docks from the top. Everything goes well. Cocol starts
to go down Jerome's lines to make a biplane. He asks his teammate to slow
his canopy down in order to make it easier. The lower canopy is not braked
at all so Cocol's reserve container grips the extrados of the central cell
and starts to partially close all the central cells. "Slow your canopy
down" Cocol asks once again. When he bends forward to make his pass and
thus free the central cells, Jerome goes hard on the brakes and then lets
go. Cocol feels he is wrapped on both sides and tries to spread his arms
to avoid a total wrap and a fall into the lines.
He is now at half line on the left side with some lines between the legs.
His right arm is blocked behind him and other lines strangle him. The two
canopies are almost side by side, one behind the other. They fly on axis
but from time to time, it opens and closes. Cocol asks Jerome to cutaway.
The latter takes a look, thinks and says: "If I do that, you will end
up even more wrapped by the 2 canopies. We have to make them fly this way
and land this thing." At this moment, Cocol regrets not having taken
his Jack or even a small knife.
In order to make the canopies fly well together, Cocol performs a left
hand traction towards the inside and Jerome does the contrary. At an altitude
of 700 metres over the crossing of the runways, Cocol can see a yellow
colza field. Then the canopies turn towards each other... Jerome's canopy
starts to wrap around Cocol's head and around his lines. Only Cocol's canopy
supports the whole thing... The more it goes down, the more the other canopy
gets around his lines and the more the lateral cells get closed. This is
actually a strangling of the canopy from the bottom.
"Do something!"
"Get rid of the twists!"
"Pull to the right!"
Both shout but it does not help...
After a moment of panic comes quietness, they are calm, "Zen" even.
Each thinks that they have tried everything and that they will go in. Now
they are silent and wait. Jerome is making big and almost horizontal circles,
Cocol is spinning with his head in the canopy which prevents him from seeing
what is going on. A few seconds before impact, "Cocol! We are going
in, goodbye" says Jerome. "Goodbye then" is the answer. Impact
comes 15 seconds after that. Cocol hears a loud noise, it is Jerome touching
the ground. A split second later, he goes in with a big thump which rings
in his guts. Blackout.
Cocol comes round, he is lying on the grass and doesnít know where he
is. Jerome is a bit further away, winded. He tries to scream in order to
recover a normal breathing, nothing comes out. Then all of a sudden, he
manages to shout. Cocol hears the scream and thinks his friend is all broken
and that he screams out of pain. Cocol lets a little time go by, breathes
and tries to get up. Jerome's screams have stopped, he is getting more
confident but he notices that he feels nothing from his pelvis to his feet.
Now the worse comes to his mind: the spine is injured...
Photo Christine Carayon
The DZO comes running and sees from far away the canopies still inflated
by the wind. The two bodies lay motion less, "Hey guys, you alive?"
says he. Kiki is on the parking lot with her boyfriend. They are headed
to Lognes for a demo jump. The car is ready to go. They climb in and drive
to where the two friends fell.
10 minutes later, things are going better: Jerome wants a cigarette
and Cocol starts to tell poetry. Kiki, a reporter in her soul, takes a
picture of this moment. Each gets an ambulance ride to the hospital. Cocol
has a double fracture of the pelvis, 4 broken ribs, a cranial traumatism
which force him to stay 10 days at the hospital and prevent him from jumping
for 3 months. Jerome has compressed vertebras, a cranial traumatism, an
elbow luxation, he gets 5 days at the hospital.
11 years to the day after this incident which ended miraculously well,
I asked Cocol to analyse the jump. "I was 20 and sometimes we would do
anything, like CReW after RW. Now I would not do CReW without a Jack and
with somebody who does not have the B3 license and a Jack of course!"
Our analysis
Cocol is right: a Jack and the B3 license are essential for CReW. Avoid
also RW with someone who does not have the B2 license, the possible consequences
will certainly be exposed in a future article.
One can only praise Jerome's attitude who preferred a very hard landing
with two people under one canopy rather than a cutaway that would have
left his friend without a solution. A good preparation of a jump comes
with a good preparation of the equipment, be careful! Two canopies flying
side by side may go in a "mirror" very easily, one has to anticipate. A
Jack is mostly used by CReWdogs but if there is one on a tandem, do not
worry: one does no do CReW with a tandem! It is used to cut a blocked command
and thus try to avoid an emergency procedure.
Warning: the English translations in this text may not all be correct.
Thanks for your comprehension and please address any comment to me Jean-Francois
RIPOCHE.