Source
r/army•
duoderf

Airborne incident this morning, we both walked away safe!

Had a super easy jump today, C17, hollywood jump. I am a pay hurt so I was a straphanger with another other unit. T11 parachute sucks compared to the mc6 but beggers cant be choosers.

I showed up this morning, manifest - prejump - don theparachute harness - get on the bird. Little bit of rain, but nothing bad. The riggers even gave us plastic garbage bags to put the reserve in because there was a light drizzle. Seriously, it was a great day for a jump, no wind and a high enough ceiling that we were going to jump with no problems at all.

On the plane we get the green light and make for the door. I'm the last guy in my stick and hit the door with plenty of time to go, these guys hit the door andgot out exactly like they were supposed to. I hand my staic line to the JM and take 2 steps out of the door.... I count to 4-1000, and I am laying on my back on another canopy. I look up (up for me which was almost parrallel to the ground)and see my canopy slowly collapsing over the side of the canopy I am on. His drag chute was wrapped around my ankle. Luckily it untwisted itself pretty fast as I moved away from the center of his canopy. As soon as I fall off the side of the other jumpers canopy I swing under mine and it grabed air, swung me away from the other jumper and I started to slip away.

We both laned 20 feet from each other. Great plf and gathered my kit and started making my way to the turn in point. The other guy didnt even realize I was on top of his canopy until I fell off the side next to him. He thought he had a weird malfunction and was ready to pull his reserve but was falling slower than others so he didnt.

What we think happened was that after exiting the aircraft we both came right back into each other after we exited opposit doors and crossed paths before either one of us had a chance to gain canopy control and slip away. This wasnt either of our fault, just shit luck that we had a mid air collision and great luck that we got away from each other.

Posted Feb 27, 2018, 1:28 AM UTC

13348
Jdahms35N•

Gnarly. Almost as adrenaline filled as the PowerPoint I built today.

160
partybirb36A lost ur paychek•

SF guy came by my office and we advanced him 10k to do SF stuff, what I'm saying is I'm basically SF now and will tell all the lads that I "supported SF" on my deployment

31
Jmoseph•

Bullshit. No one has a great plf

45
duoderfOP•

This is probably one of the truest statements on reddit.

I'm oldish (37) and I feel stiff in my back. Not back pain, its more like I excersized wrong and i'm sore

33
Nickx978•

That’s the green weenie gettin ya

8
Hauptjaeger•

Mr. MC-6 disagrees.

4
misinformed66Because Fuck You, That's Why.•

I walked across someone's chute once, and had someone walk across mine. Both times scared the shit out of me.

31
duoderfOP•

I was amazed at how almost solid it felt, I would almost describe it as a half empty water bed.

21
ph0on•

Makes sense, when you think about it. That's a shit ton of wind and air resistance and whatnot

4
mak8tack19D3P•

Had a great hollywood jump once (T10B, I'm old) from the side of a herc and guy in front of me swore I ran on top of his canopy once we were back in garrison. Guy insisted even when I said "I'd remember that..." but no, he swore it had to be me... My boots didn't touch anything until that first point of the PLF.

9
tylerks279•

Second jump at jump school with the t10 and I landed like absolute shit.

Knocked unconscious for a split second as my head slammed backwards into the ground upon landing.

9.5/10, good times. Half point deduction on quality of experience because it was hot as fuck outside.

9
_This_Is_Stupid•

Bounced off of someone's once. That was a fun jump.

1
l3ubba35F Airborn•

This is why you jump with Group. Ramp jumps all day.

23
duoderfOP•

90% of my jumps that arent with my unit are with SWCS on the C27. Its awesome to mainfest/pre-jump on teh DZ, rig on the DZ, load the aircraft on the DZ, land on the DZ and turn in your kit on the DZ.

Its nice

12
l3ubba35F Airborn•

Yeah my favorites were CH-47s and UH-60s. Pretty much the same thing, go to the DZ, rig up, aircraft land, hop on, come back down. Shit, if you wanted you could get a few extra jumps in.

6
duoderfOP•

Yeppers. My unit does a big airborne operation every year and during taht week long period everybody gets a half dozen jumps, all high performance and combat equiptment is optional. The folks chasimg their star or wreath bring their combat equiptment

5
BrilliantPebbles1•

This is why I joined this sub. 60-year-old disabled army grunt here.

21
Toknowmore111•

This and to join in on our hatred for cooks if I'm a betting man.

Army cook hatred transcends generations. "Fuck cooks" was actually first spoken by a Minuteman at the Battle of Bunker Hill when the redcoat cook they captured garnished their pork, bread, and peas with poison ivy leaves. A moment that will live in infamy.

12
GarryOwen19K/19D/91B•

See, I misheard that as a private and ended up fucking a cook.

4
hereforstickers•

Jumping was such a roller coaster of emotions for me.

20
BO_LEE•

Damm. Could have went ugly in a hurry. Glad your safe and walked away vertical.

16
Baseplate•

My buddy died like that. Only the guy went through his risers and the top parachute collapsed the bottom. They started spinning out of control popped reserves which didn't do shit. Somehow they flew apart and the bottom guy's chute didn't reinflate and he hit the ground and broke all of his bones. I think we had been back from Iraq about 3 weeks at that point.

8
thedon52•

Oh my God.

4
papi_blancoAir Assault Is a Joke•

great plf

So you ate shit but you didn't break your legs

7
_manoftheyear_Saltiest Veteran•

Why is it that everyone seems to get hurt on C-17 jumps? That includes myself. It seemed like every time I had a soldier on a profile, it was from a C-17 jump. Everyone likes them because you have extra space, but damn if I don’t see more injuries out of that bird.

6
nigersbehating18•

Too used to C130?

1
deadcat6RET•

Damn, what a story! That's pretty awesome brother!

5
granitecounters•

Every jump you walk away from is a good jump.

5
heavenisablackhole92F, 11B | CIV(P)•

Yup, just gonna stay a leg forever

4
ArmyballerRetired11M/11A/90A•

You should by some lottery tickets...

3
xSaRgEDCad-Idiot•

Why? He already used up his luck for the year.

1
InfinityCircuit•

Simultaneous exit. Glad you did the right things and shuffled off his canopy immediately. You did the right thing. Glad you landed safe!

3
theworstsaiyan•

Glad you’re ok! I guess they’ve moved on from the T10D?

2
TheTrewthHurts25W4S5W•

Yes sir, replaced with T-11 and USASOC (and some others 😉) mostly jumps MC-6 (MC1-1D with T11 harness)

5
JaggedMedici•

And that's why I don't jump

2
Hauptjaeger•

Did we ever figure out a solution for the dreaded center panel strike on the T-11? When I left TRADOC that was still a hot issue- basically if you landed in the center panel of another T-11, it was too big for you to run/roll out of, and you couldn't get enough air for your reserve to inflate.

2
duoderfOP•

Nope. There isnt even any ideas of how to fix it without a new parachute design.

2
fallenreaperRECONsidering•

Airborne? Airborne.

2
botsmacko👳🏾‍♀️👬🍆🍑•

I prefer not to leave my life in the hands of human error and riggers especially with the skyrocketing rates of braindead privates.

FBI also just raided a skydiving center near my house due to the deaths recently. no thanks

1†
ANNlHlLATE82nd•

Hahaha Lodi?

4
botsmacko👳🏾‍♀️👬🍆🍑•

Yep

2
ANNlHlLATE82nd•

Yeah that place was pretty sketchy haha

1
fastmatt30•

If that's true holy shit

1
PziXIV•

I don't think I've ever heard of a malfunction that caused a death in the military recently

2
Repo_guy•

Watched a guy today fall 4000 feet before his cypress went off. Dude gave himself a line over and thought he could ride it out...

4
l3ubba35F Airborn•

Yeah, IIRC all the ones I've heard of in the past couple years have either been the jumpers fault and/or the safety or JM's fault. I was always paranoid about who JMPI'd me. I'd specifically try to place myself near JM's that I trusted. I'm sure the others would have done a good job too, but I knew their work ethic and I didn't trust them to do their normal job at work so I sure as fuck wasn't going to trust them to make sure my equipment was right.

4