This is why you should NEVER try to force a refusal:
[video=youtube_share;tZF9GwgCVfY]http://youtu.be/tZF9GwgCVfY[/video]
There are so many things wrong here:
1. Never ever FORCE a refusal. By the time they exited, the passenger had forgotten all the training about arching and was focusing on going fetal. I know what the instructor did it (because she was holding up the entire load and they'd have to have done a go-around and a bunch of shifting to keep her in the aircraft) - but sometimes not going is the right thing to do.
2. Make sure the harness is properly tightened. This one was too loose and it was obvious to me inside the plane. There were some issues like this and the manufacturers altered the harness design to keep this from happening.
3. You have to be able to spot this before you get to the door. I'd never have let an 80 year old woman go first - if she balks, the whole load is shot. If she sees someone else go first, you'll know before she gets to the door that its gonna be a refusal and better to deal w/it way inside the airplane.
I have to give credit to the instructor though. Upon exit, this had the ability to get even worse quickly. That spinning is what's called the Tandem Death Spiral - If they get to spinning too fast, the centrifical force can knock them both out (he's got an automatic opener, but in that configuration it might still not save them). He did the right thing - he pulled the drogue which gave them an anchor in the air and gave him SOME stability to be able to work with. In fact, their instruction tells them to pull the main right away, but this instructor had the presence of mind to hold of to see if he could get his passenger back into the harness before he did it, fearing she'd just let go and fall out. If you look, she's got both arms wrapped around the chest harness, and she wasn't going anywhere (unless she let go of course).
The video guy tried to help get her back into the harness in freefall, but by this time she wasn't budging. Finally, the instructor did what he had to do to save his own life, and that was deploy whether she fell out or not - luckily she didn't. You could see it scared the crap out of him also.
This is why you can't ever take ANYTHING for granted when you jump.
[video=youtube_share;tZF9GwgCVfY]http://youtu.be/tZF9GwgCVfY[/video]
There are so many things wrong here:
1. Never ever FORCE a refusal. By the time they exited, the passenger had forgotten all the training about arching and was focusing on going fetal. I know what the instructor did it (because she was holding up the entire load and they'd have to have done a go-around and a bunch of shifting to keep her in the aircraft) - but sometimes not going is the right thing to do.
2. Make sure the harness is properly tightened. This one was too loose and it was obvious to me inside the plane. There were some issues like this and the manufacturers altered the harness design to keep this from happening.
3. You have to be able to spot this before you get to the door. I'd never have let an 80 year old woman go first - if she balks, the whole load is shot. If she sees someone else go first, you'll know before she gets to the door that its gonna be a refusal and better to deal w/it way inside the airplane.
I have to give credit to the instructor though. Upon exit, this had the ability to get even worse quickly. That spinning is what's called the Tandem Death Spiral - If they get to spinning too fast, the centrifical force can knock them both out (he's got an automatic opener, but in that configuration it might still not save them). He did the right thing - he pulled the drogue which gave them an anchor in the air and gave him SOME stability to be able to work with. In fact, their instruction tells them to pull the main right away, but this instructor had the presence of mind to hold of to see if he could get his passenger back into the harness before he did it, fearing she'd just let go and fall out. If you look, she's got both arms wrapped around the chest harness, and she wasn't going anywhere (unless she let go of course).
The video guy tried to help get her back into the harness in freefall, but by this time she wasn't budging. Finally, the instructor did what he had to do to save his own life, and that was deploy whether she fell out or not - luckily she didn't. You could see it scared the crap out of him also.
This is why you can't ever take ANYTHING for granted when you jump.
