Pontius,
Yes, the safety harnesses are very fetching, are they not?
Sadly neccessary to comply with modern H&S guidelines and all part of the conditions for the CAA issuing a permit.
As for the brake para, as 50+ Ray correctly states that maximum stream speed is 135kts with anything up to 145tks requiring an inspection, chutes streamed above 145kts being scrap. As to the shear pin speeds, the pin was not designed to break at a specific speed, but upon being subject to a load of 103,000 lbs +/- 5%. Perhaps this explains why exact figures are hazy.
The death of the rigger, was apparently discovered to be a failure of the 'wind down' tool, which snapped, allowing the door to spring open and throw the unfortunate chap to his death. This led to the 'wind down' tools being quickly removed from service, with the door being pulled closed from below via cabling through the rearmost area of the ECM bay.
Flipflopman