Summary
After the snow season, I resumed skydiving. During the landing on my third jump, I did not reference my altimeter and instead trusted my intuitive sense of altitude too much, which led to an overshoot. At that point, because I had not considered the emergency procedures, and because I also failed to understand the instructor’s signals, I became even more flustered. In the end, I landed after making two stupid steep turns below 300 ft. Afterwards, I received a serious warning from the instructor: if the DropZone owner had seen my reckless actions, I could have stopped the certification process and just left...
Personal Impact
Because I was using a student canopy, the margin for error was relatively large. Although the control inputs were stupid, I did not actually slam into the ground/a wall/a fence on landing; it just gave both me and the instructor a scare. The main issue was that it had been a long time since I had been criticized so harshly for doing something stupid, which felt pretty bad psychologically—though of course this is a good thing. It is far better than having a real accident, ending up in the hospital, and then writing a long reflection essay.
Incident Response Analysis
After realizing the overshoot, I originally planned to tough it out and fly straight in, but there was a real chance of landing on the road or hitting the fence at the end. The instructor noticed that my position was off and began waving a signal paddle, trying to get me to do S turns to burn off more altitude, but I did not understand what he meant and instead made an almost 180-degree turn. Halfway through the turn I realized it was a dangerous maneuver, so I started turning sharply in the opposite direction at an even larger angle, trying to find space to land. After two steep turns, I burned altitude quickly. Fortunately, I still had some distance before impacting the hangar; after a full flare, I landed safely.
Timeline
- 12500 ft: Exit, with a significant offset from the dropzone
- 12000~7000 ft: Practiced two backflips; the second was somewhat out of control, and I used some altitude to stabilize
- 6000+ ft: Tried tracking, but because I was a bit far from the DZ, I could not find the direction to the DZ
- 5000~4000 ft: Opened the canopy
- xx ft: Entered the landing pattern; altitude was high at this point
- xx ft: Began the approach for landing; altitude was still high
- < 300 ft: Realized the overshoot and tried to correct; a sharp turn right and then left
- 0ft: Landed
5 Why’s
Why did I overshoot on landing?
- Because I was eager to land, I did not correctly follow the landing pattern and did not use the altimeter to bleed off altitude, resulting in being high on final
Why didn’t I bleed off the appropriate altitude before the approach?
- On exit, I was a bit far from the DZ, so I decided to fly straight back; when I arrived over the DZ, I was still relatively high, which differed from prior experience
- After opening, my thigh/hip area was pulled painfully, and I just wanted to end the jump as soon as possible, so I made one fewer turn over the adjacent cornfield, hoping to walk fewer steps after landing
- On the previous jump, I also judged altitude by intuition, but the landing spot was very accurate, which inflated my confidence and made me trust my intuition too much
- The day before, there was a fairly strong headwind on landing; when following the signal arrow, I almost undershot, so I felt that leaving more altitude margin would not be a problem
- I did not seriously review and prepare the landing pattern, and had completely lost my sense of the normal altitude ranges for each phase
Why was my speed too high at opening, causing my leg to hurt from the opening force?
- During freefall, I tried two backflips, which wasted some altitude
- At a relatively low altitude I tried tracking again; I quickly realized it was time to deploy, but by then my speed was still very high, so the deceleration at opening was a bit harsh
Why did I do a steep turn after noticing the overshoot?
- At the time it seemed I was going to attempt S turns, but seeing the instructor’s signals made me more panicked, and I thought he was asking for a sharp turn. Halfway through the turn I noticed the descent rate increasing and realized it was dangerous, so I started turning sharply the other way. In the end I became more and more flustered.
Why did the instructor’s signals increase my panic instead?
- Before boarding I had not thought through how to handle overshoot/undershoot at all, so when the unexpected happened, I did not understand what the instructor meant
Why didn’t I consider a response plan for overshoot before skydiving?
- In ground school I only remembered “don’t do steep turns,” but I did not think at all about what the correct response should be
- The previous landing was very smooth, which gave me an inexplicable confidence in my altitude intuition
Lessons Learned
- A small mistake can trigger more errors in succession, ultimately producing unpredictable outcomes. For example, this mistake was caused by multiple factors stacking together: an off exit spot, deploying at too high a speed, inexplicable overconfidence, and not preparing an overshoot plan, etc. Because freefall is so fast, the time available to deal with problems is very short. Therefore, skydiving’s fault tolerance is far lower than scuba diving or skiing; every action must be taken with great caution—never be reckless! NO PISSY ATTITUDE！
- Opening the canopy does not mean the skydive is over—you are not safe until you have landed successfully! Maintain altitude awareness at all times, execute actions according to the correct procedures, and remember that you are still a newbie in skydiving—do not overestimate your own feelings and muscle memory.
Action Items
Before the next jump:
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Review landing patterns
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Carefully read through Spaceland’s textbook once
Before boarding:
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Review the emergency procedures for the freefall phase
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Mentally rehearse the landing pattern and how to handle overshoot/undershoot
