Safety: The Jump
On Fatal Assumptions
This past weekend 16 Russian sport parachutists were killed and six more severely injured when their aircraft crash landed shortly after takeoff.
It may have been overloaded.
Sitting at home reading the article, I was reminded that my best childhood friend, David Ropp, died along with ten others when their Beechcraft 65 also crashed shortly after takeoff in 1995.
David, gifted and larger than life, was 38 and had spent more than 24 hours free falling; he was an expert para instructor in every sense.
The Guardian article quotes a surviving member of the Russian team, “We are the best, we are among the top five clubs,” Ravil Nurmekhametov told Tass, adding that his organisation hosted international parachuting competitions.”
But experience level matters not when either the pilot or the aircraft, or both, are not up to the job.
In the U.S., hundreds of sport parachutists have been killed in accidents before their jump.
Time after time the investigations have found
- that their aircraft was overloaded, often to a significant degree
- the center of gravity was aft of allowable limits
- basic pre-flight checks which would have identified a problem had been ignored or skipped
- the aircraft engines were long overdue for maintenance or overhaul
- the pilots failed to react correctly, or at all, to the developing emergency and may have caused it.
In 2019, ten parachutists and their pilot were killed in a Hawaii crash in a Beech 65.
The aircraft was never properly repaired from an earlier accident leaving it with a twisted left wing.
The pilot not only flew recklessly but likely took off without using the full length of runway, referred to as an “intersection departure.”
The center of gravity of the aircraft was probably aft of allowable limits.
In David’s fatal accident, their Beech 65 was overloaded by 150 lbs and the center of gravity was too far aft.
The aircraft was fueled from plastic jugs filled from a fuel tank so low the pump would not work.
An engine was misfiring during takeoff and the right engine had been shutdown after takeoff.
I’m no skydiver but it’s a potent reminder to me, at work or play, to assume nothing where safety is concerned and to remember to do my homework and ask basic questions because very bad things happen to some very good people.
David Ropp was one of those.
