Palm parachute accident.

[helen-damnation]

Does anyone know what happened on Friday afternoon?

Seen by hundreds nearby, what looked like a chute problem and a very fast descent.

Not sure whether s/he landed on the strip or in the water but it didn't look good.

H-D

[Wizofoz]

Yeah, well, it's a dangerous sport. Yeh pays yeh money, yeh takes yeh chances.

It WOULD be interesting to see the consequences if one of the bouncees was HRH Sheik Hamdan...

[Tower Ranger]

It may be a different incident but I heard that one of the girls had a tangled chute and had to cut away and use the reserve, landed safely and the shoot landed itself on a breakwater nearby.

[helen-damnation]

TR

Sounds about right but the one I saw appeared to have two tangled chutes and neither was "inflated".

If it was the same, then glad to hear it was survivable because it didn't look good from the beach.

[Tower Ranger]

I hope is was nothing more serious but as one of the earlier posters said it is only a matter of time until something happens in a sport that dangerous. I guess even operating a shed of that strip on the Palm must be a fairly tricky business.

[RemoveB4Flght]

A cut-away is like an engine failure... something you train for and think about.. but like pilot, some jumpers experience them right away, and some have 10,000 jumps before thier first.

The way they are packed and deploy, modern parachutes are rarely deploy improperly. Of course you have a reserve canopy to deploy should that happen.

All of the rigs used for training and rental at both Dubai dropzones are equipped with a system called a Cypress, which if both high vertical speed and low atitude occur at the same time will automatically deploy your reserve (to protect against loss of altitude awareness or perhaps incapacitation).

To jump at the Palm drop zone, you must either jump tandem (strapped to an experienced instructor) or hold a B license or higher. The B license requires a minimum of 50 skydives to complete.

[Plazbot]

I look at the strip straight out my bedroom window and there is some crazy **** going on down there. Guys doing that thing where the do the dive straight at the ground while the aircraft is touching down below them. Also have watched a number of times as the aircraft gets airborne as para-sailers towed behind boats are going by. You can tell me it is safe/by the regulations all you want but as an observer, it certainly is not a good look.

[CEP]

Sure hope that the person involved wasn't injured.......nothing on Dropzone.com - The single best source for skydiving information (http://www.dropzone.com) yet. Will wait and watch. Hopefully it was the cut main only ending up on the breakwater.
Double mal isn't something nice, especially if the reserve deploys into the main for whatever reason, and then ending up with washing over your head.
Any dropzone will have it's fair share of incidents, that just goes with the nature of the sport - it's high risk - and anyone who jumps makes that choice. Problem comes for the poor whuffos on the ground when something goes wrong, and they are in the way of a piece of equipment that has come loose during freefall and is aimed towards their person doing terminal(seen that happen). Or a spinning mal when the g-forces are too great for the jumper to get their hands up to the cutaway puff and D-ring. JBR below.........
Skydiving is a fantastic sport, apparently this DZ is rated one of the tops, but has one problem IMHO......location, location, location. When you see them spotting overhead the Walk, take your coffee indoors.......

[jackbauer]

On the list of dangerous sports skydiving comes in below Snow Skiing and Fishing. Blue Skies, Black Death:ouch:

[skysod]

I jump at this DZ regularly and can assure you that the management take safety very seriously indeed!
Blue skies and safe landings to all who jump at this beautiful DZ.:)

[checcker10]

Yeah I watched it too. Looked nasty to me and the candling shute was heading down at a fair rate with a large weight on the end of it. Haven't seen anything in the press(no surprise!) but would like to hear from someone who was there. Stay safe