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By Jonathan Bartlett — On Sept. 28, 2002, I had my second cutaway under my Velocity 103. Same problem as the first: spinning line twist on opening diving over my left shoulder sending me spinning on my back. This time I cursed, took a deep breath, and took a firm grip on my cutaway pillow. As I went back into freefall, I flipped and got back belly to earth. I deployed my reserve, which had a great opening. Here is where the story gets interesting. As I unstowed my reserve toggles, the right hand toggle and lower steering line came completely off. Now that the steering line on the right side did not have the slightest tension, the tail flipped up a little creating a right hand turn. I knew I had to land the reserve on rear risers. I came in holding the left riser down a few inches to counter the turn and had a good flare. I was about to softly put it down on my butt when yeah, you guessed it, I stalled the canopy. Not too bad though, about a one foot drop onto my butt, very ungraceful. So what happened with the toggle? Well it turns out PD missed a bartack. The lower bartack at the right side cateye was missing. The line was finger trapped but not bartacked. About seven different riggers have packed my reserve. [Editor’s Note: Chuting Star Rigging Loft has never inspected or packed this reserve] So be careful, PD uses silver thread, which requires a better eye for inspections than other manufacturers, such as Flight Concepts, which uses red. [Editor’s Note: Color of thread is not an acceptable excuse for not catching a missing bartack. Chuting Star Rigging Loft has found two missing bartacks in the last couple of years. One was on a Para-Flite reserve and the other on a Strong tandem reserve. Both were silver thread and both were on the steering lines. Choose a thorough rigger.] Riggers, don’t forget to check the bartacks carefully. And what else did I learn on this jump? My PD113 reserve flies really well and lands softly, even on rear risers.

By Jonathan Bartlett — On Sept. 1, 2002, I almost died. I made mistakes and have learned from them but think I should let others know about what happened so maybe it will prevent another from being in the same situation. On the third jump of the day my team, GT Inviscid, was closing the last point as my Dytter went off, I tracked away and deployed by 3,000 feet. I was watching my opening and as it sniveled it started to oscillate back and forth as my Velocity tends to do. As the slider was making its way down, the canopy spun and dove over my left shoulder. After two revolutions I can see that I have about three and half twists. I cannot get my momentum going to get out of the twists due the incredible force of spinning on my back. At this point my Dytter’s third warning is shrieking in my helmet as I am going through 2,000 feet on my back in a serious dive. My head is pinned by the risers so I cannot see my handles. With this being my first malfunction, I can honestly say I was scared. All this together is what almost cost me my life. My system at this point had a pillow reserve. In the chaos, my mind felt pad and pulled, except I pulled the wrong side, I pulled the reserve in a diving spin. To my luck, the reserve opened perfectly and stabilized me. My Velocity was out in front of me and the risers and lines were clear so I cut it away, and landed uneventfully on my PD113 reserve. So why did this happen? Well to start with my team was averaging 20 jumps every weekend. I think I started to get lax. I know I did not actively go through my cutaway procedures like I normally do. I had two pillows that were near identical so there was no tactile difference. And I rushed because I was scared. Since then I have ordered a low profile metal D ring, which I highly recommend. Watch out for experienced jumper complacency; it happens. Go through your procedures on every lift to altitude. It could mean the difference between life and death.