Lost my shoe on a skydive - carnage skydive 3 way jump goes to shit.

basejumper (62)in #skydiving • 6 years ago (edited)

I'm getting good at losing stuff on skydives, this time my Vans trainer came off as we exited the plane on a 3-way.

When we practiced this exit on the mock-up plane on the ground, I also lost my shoe.

I should have thought 'hmm, my shoe got caught on the step of the replica plane, maybe the same will happen when we jump for real?', ...but I didn't, doh!

The way I was stood on the thin narrow metal step of the plane I think stuck into a groove on the bottom of my shoe, which caused it to stick a little. I wear my shoes looser rather than tighter when doing CRW or Wingsuiting skydives so I can kick them off easily if an entanglement occurs. So its kinda default for me to wear them loose 'just in case'.

So, we are getting in the door, Steve goes first (blue & yellow jump suit), then myself. We are both standing on the outside step.

I grab hold of Steve's MLW on his harness with my right hand, and have my left hand on the hand rail just inside of the door.

Simon (BASE 60) stays inside the plane, grabs hold of my harness and does the count, and on '3', we will all jump out.

1, 2, 3, GO!

...it goes to shit.

A combination of all 3 of us doing something wrong.

My shoe just flew past Steve's face, the camera didn't pick it up, but I saw it. It was slightly higher than the angle of my camera.

Steve is now in my face

I still have hold of him, as I feel it can be salvaged

I let go with my right hand as it's doing nothing to help the situation, and for some reason grope Steve with my left hand hahahaha, no idea why! Maybe I thought I could flip him over? Who knows.

But he does eventually flip over and get stable on his belly again

Now Steve is settled, its time for Simon and I to go get him.

But what about my shoe??

There is something else wrong with this picture, my pin flap is open! So my closing pin is exposed...not good.

I don't fancy a horseshoe malfunction!

The amount of stuff I have picked up on my rear view camera is phenomenal.

I use the rear facing GoPro Hero 5 on every jump, its such a useful tool. I would never have known that my pin flap just likes to open up mid freefall. I can now address that issue buy getting my rigger take a look at it.

Simon is carving around above my head, and gets to Steve first.

Bear in mind, this is Steve's first skydive since obtaining his A-licence, so he has a lot going on around him.

He did well to stay calm and remain stable for us to dock him.

The 3-way star wasn't super stable, but its was ok

I let go of the formation to get a good shot of Steve with BASE 60 on his first skydive since qualifying.

It's now 5,500ft and we are about to enter cloud, so I thought I'd better get the f**k outta there.

I turned to the right 90 degrees and tracked away through the cloud and pulled at 3,500ft.

Steve you can see there, to my left. He deployed where he was at 3,500ft, and you can just about make out Simon under canopy to the far left of the photo. He tracked left 90 degrees from Steve. So you can see we have good horizontal separation. So although the first half of the skydive didn't go to plan, we kept the skydive nice and safe.