This incident took place a few years ago, I am unable to name names, the location and country where this incident took place, however I can explain what happened on this day and the lucky escape a close friend of mine had. The reporting of these incidents is sometimes frowned upon, however I believe that good reporting of such incidents and accidents can help us all to become more aware and safer.
We had gone to max around 12k and the weather had suddenly closed in, the aircraft began descending and we were looking for a clear spot, we broke cloud cover at about 1,700 ft and the pilot gave the call do you want to take it, some of us said yes. On the run in we were now down to 1,500ft as the cloud was now closing in further. I called to the pilot and said no its too low, he said I will pull it up into the cloud just as we get over the spot we said OK thats fine. We hit just over 1,700ft and the first guy a friend of mine exited with a bunny hop out of the door deploying almost instantly whilst still in the sitting position nice clean and stable. My other friend left the aircraft in an attempt at the same type of exit; however he later admitted that he had never done one before. He left the aircraft without keeping his body symmetrical and not on aircraft heading; this caused him to immediately go unstable spinning and tumbling as he disappeared into the cloud.
I left the aircraft and deployed straight away, as soon as I cleared the cloud I looked for my friend, he was almost on the ground and under a main canopy with twists; he hit the ground a few seconds later just as the last twist was kicked out. Before he hit the ground I could see something trailing behind him and realised that his cypres had fired and the reserve bridle and pilot chute had luckily wrapped itself around his spinning body locking the reserve in the container. He was alright apart from a few bruises and rather shaken. Luck was on his side it could have been much more serious, he could have ended up with the main and reserve entangled, also by luck he landed on a part of the dropzone which was about 150ft lower than the main landing area. He was so low that several of the jumpers on the DZ had looked away feeling sure that he would not survive.
OK perhaps we should not have taken it, but we each have to take responsibility
for our own ability and actions. My friend should not have attempted an untried and unfamiliar exit and he was lucky to not get hurt or killed. He should have pulled earlier even though he was unstable, however he should not have been unstable in the first place.
I think its a good idea to keep yourself refreshed with a hop n pop now and again just encase you have to do one in a real emergency.
Blue skies and safe landings.
Robert Waugh.
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