SFL-2022-001 · Cause: Low cutaway
Partially verified Facts as reported in the sources below. This is not an official investigation.
Incident
- Date
- 15.01.2022
- Country
- USA
- Drop zone
- Skydive Spaceland Clewiston
- Place
- Clewiston, Florida
- Context
- Sport / fun jump
- Jump type
- Belly / RW
- Phase
- Deployment
Jumper
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 65
- Total jumps
- 6,700
- Years in sport
- 38
Equipment
- RSL / MARD
- None
Cause
- Category
- Low cutaway
- Malfunction
- Line twists
What happened
7-way formation jump. The main opened at about 1,800 ft with line twists, with one brake still stowed and the other released, and spun for about 30 seconds. She cut away at about 200 ft without deploying the reserve. No RSL was fitted.
Lessons for safety
Decide and act by your hard deck: a spinning main that is not fixed by then means cut away and deploy the reserve immediately. An RSL helps on low cutaways.
Sources
- www.uspa.org Federation, USPA 2022 fatality summary, case #19 (anonymous)
Is something wrong or missing? Send a correction and mention SFL-2022-001.