Skydive plane Mid-air

Saw this a minute ago. First off; I'm glad everyone made it out alive and props to both pilots and the jumpers for their efforts during the emergency. It looks like everyone did this one right.

...Except for the accident in the first place. I'm sure we'll hear from the pilots soon enough so I probably shouldn't speculate but, well, I can't help myself. :p

It looks like either untrained/poor formation flying and they lost visual separation. Either way, it does appear (from what the jumpers said in the interview) that they intended to all jump and meet-up together in the air. This says to me that the pilots knew about each other and also intended to get fairly close.

If it was formation flying then they'll likely run afoul of FAR §91.111(c) which prohibits commercial formation flying (edit: guess not). They might also run into the catch-all of part (a) of that rule regarding no closer than is safe to avoid collision. Either way, looks like they knew that they would be close and should have maintained visual separation better (duh, I guess) and probably announced if/when they lost visual separation and had a plan to deal with that.

Anyway, you can see the cause of the collision in the helmet cam of the guy inside looking out the door right before impact. The rear-ward plane descended onto the pilot-side, rear quarter of the forward aircraft. Looks like the forward plane picked up a lot of drag from the jumpers or powered down a lot because the rearward plane has a lot more forward speed than the other plane. Either way there was almost no chance for the pilot to see that and probably little or no time for the jumpers to give warning.

Shame about the 182 but I guess everyone gets out with one more life lesson. I'm also glad that the jumpers didn't give any of this up. If anything this would prove to me that they're doing it right as they took a worst-case scenario and all came away from it with some interesting stories to tell and some GREAT video.

Anyone think GoPRO is going to try to tout their cameras as cockpit video recorders now? :p
 
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It was an intentional formation flight gone bad they didn't randomly run into each other. FAA has ruled formation flights with skydivers on board is legal. And skydiving formation flights is a common, and longstanding practice.
 
Guess they're all good then. I remember reading about that now but filled it away in my "not terribly useful" mental folder as the chance of me piloting a parachuting flight are nil at this point.

Well, hopefully they don't have too many FAA people knocking on their doors this week. I don't think they should loose their license over this and hopefully a NASA report gets them out of any troubled water. Plus, if anything, this is a good lesson for anyone attempting formation flying.
 
tehmightypirate said:
The rear-ward plane descended onto the pilot-side, rear quarter of the forward aircraft. Looks like the forward plane picked up a lot of drag from the jumpers or powered down a lot because the rearward plane has a lot more forward speed than the other plane. Either way there was almost no chance for the pilot to see that and probably little or no time for the jumpers to give warning.
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Lead aircraft was below and to the right of the trailing aircraft - they set up a formation where neither pilot could see the other airplane. That doesn't work.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Lead aircraft was below and to the right of the trailing aircraft - they set up a formation where neither pilot could see the other airplane. That doesn't work.
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Indeed not. It looks like they might have intended for the forward aircraft to be at a 45, same altitude, and he drifted low and back and the rearward pilot didn't catch that he lost visual in time.
 
tehmightypirate said:
Indeed not. It looks like they might have intended for the forward aircraft to be at a 45, same altitude, and he drifted low and back and the rearward pilot didn't catch that he lost visual in time.
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If the forward aircraft is the lead aircraft the responsibility lies in the aircraft behind in the formation not to get that close.

The more I look at the video the more I'm convinced they had no intention of flying formation. If they did, it was a truly awful non-standard, job of it.
 
Doesn't opening that door start the plane into decent ? I bet he opened his door and sunk into the lower plane.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4
 
dottat said:
Doesn't opening that door start the plane into decent ? I bet he opened his door and sunk into the lower plane.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4
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Just opening the door aint going to drop altitude, now slowing up for jump run will start a decent, you dont want a high power setting (al la slow flight) on jump run, jumpers don't dig prop blast when they are floating
 
Anyone else surprised at the fact that the pilot himself had a chute on? Definitly turned out being a good thing he did, but not standard practice. I was also surprised how easily the wings came off the 182...looked like a holywood scene. Glad everyone made it out alive!
 
Cessna jump pilots always wear chutes it is required by the jump modification stc
 
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