Skydiving tandem can be such a bore. For experienced instructors like Forest Troy Pullman it’s just another day at the office.
Everything started off fine on a jump back in February with a friend’s wife in tandem when something extraordinary happened.
The pilot on the airplane they jumped out of steered the plane on a 180 degree dive right toward the two divers. As you can see in the video, the diver’s drogue and bridle get clipped by the wing of the airplane. Now that’s way too close for comfort.
Without the drogue and bridle, the main shoot would never deploy, so Pullman released the backup shoot and drifts toward the ground safely.
“On this jump the pilot messed up in a big big way,” Pullman says in the comment section of the video.” We all are very very lucky. If the wing did hit us it could have crippled us or killed us easily. The impact could have ripped the wing off possibly killing the pilots who also got very lucky.”
The instructor went on to say he has only heard of this happening maybe two other times. One other incident where a diver was killed when he was struck by the airplane’s wing is captured on Youtube.
Photo credit: Youtube screenshot
