FAA looks into skydiving fatality
By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
FAA investigators have begun examining the parachute rig involved in a fatal skydiving accident Sunday at Mokule'ia.
Investigators took possession of the rig yesterday and had no comment on the cause of the accident that killed a Navy diver stationed at Pearl Harbor.
The Navy identified the skydiver as Petty Officer 2nd Class Jeremy M. Barrett, 24, of Winfield, Iowa. Barrett was a hull technician assigned to Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One at Pearl Harbor.
Meanwhile, Skydive Hawaii resumed operations yesterday at Dillingham Airfield after discussing the accident in a morning safety briefing, said Frank Hinshaw, company president. Barrett had been a student with the company in 2003 and was flown to a jumping altitude Sunday aboard its Cessna Caravan.
Barrett got into trouble when he deployed his main chute at too low an altitude — between 1,500 and 2,000 feet — and one of the many suspension lines wrapped over the top of the parachute. The problem causes the jumper to spin out of control but is not by itself a fatal situation, said Hinshaw, who did not witness the accident. "He started out behind the game and it just got worse."
Skydive Hawaii urges its students to open their chutes at 5,000 feet, Hinshaw said. An expert can pull the rip cord just above 2,000 feet, he said.
Skydivers can use a special "hook knife" to cut a troublesome line from the array of 32 lines that tether a jumper to his parachute and land safely, Hinshaw said. Less than half of all skydivers carry such a knife, in part because modern parachutes are extremely reliable, Hinshaw said.
It was thought to be Barrett's first parachute malfunction.
"The parachutes today are so reliable that you can make literally thousands of jumps without malfunction," he said. "Before, you looked for malfunctions more because they just didn't open that good. The engineering has progressed so that we just don't have that many malfunctions, and maybe you get complacent."
Barrett jettisoned his fouled main chute at somewhere between 400 and 500 feet, then deployed his reserve chute at 300 feet. It was too low to open and slow him down, however.
Barrett, with 171 jumps, was not a novice jumper but he was far from expert, said Hinshaw, who called him a good student and skydiver.
"While everyone wishes we had it to do over again, this sort of thing happens in a high-speed sport like skydiving," Hinshaw said. "We all live with the knowledge that this kind of thing can happen."
Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.
