Originally Posted by
BEagle
rolling20, I had known the chap who was killed when he released both seat harness and parachute - but only as a fellow ULAS student many years earlier.
I can't remember the exact procedure we used when I became a Bulldog QFI in 1991, but the fatal accident was still quite fresh in peoples' minds and some procedure had been adopted to reduce the risk of inadvertent chute QRF release during a real abandonment.
It appears that some haven't understood my post so I'll try again!
I was a Bulldog QFI on a UAS from 1989 till 1992. At the UAS I worked at, parachutes were not routinely left in the seat for the next person; they were normally kept in the line office. The procedure was to collect a parachute from the line office and return it afterwards, or when a running change was necessary, the oncoming student was assisted to don it before climbing in. However, due to wear on the parachute outer covering we were told we should use the practice of unstrapping from the parachute before exiting the aircraft and carefully lift it out afterwards, when standing on the wing. I declined to do this for the reason I already stated. The later accident occurred after this; it seemed obvious to me that the pilot who died probably reverted to the normal procedure used iaw with that instruction, rather than the emergency procedure, which was only carried out once a month. Had he been used to leaving the chute on his back every time he left the aircraft he might not have inadvertently unlocked his QRB before unstrapping his seat harness and abandoning the aircraft in flight.