We finally completed the last jump, a night water jump which turned into a disaster for me. We jumped into Eglin Bay from a HC-130. It was a very dark night, and I was leery about the jump for some reason. Usually I liked jumping by now, but this was a full scuba jump, with the tanks, the reserve parachute, a medical kit, and a butt-boat (one-man survival raft). Looking out the door, I could see almost nothing as we were not dark-adapted for the jump (the lights in the plane had not been dimmed). I jumped, felt a good opening, and was relieved to be out of the heat of the plane. The water was less than a minute below me. After checking the ‘chute, my next task was to pull the pins of the risers so I could steer. But something was not right with my right riser group. Rather than going up at an angle, these two risers went straight up. I looked up, and there was a wrap of parachute line from the rear of the skirt down to the risers, which had been looped over the other riser, forming a half hitch around both risers. This kept the two risers together, and made it impossible to use this riser group for steering. We were still using the slip-riser method of steering the canopy by distortion of the rear steering oval in the ‘chute. With only one riser group to steer with, I made a poor, down-wind landing into the water. I hit hard on my fins, then dove face-first into the inky black, salty bay. Coughing and sputtering, I got to the surface just in time for the canopy to start pulling me through the water. Still face-down, I grabbed another breath, and released the left Capwell Quick-release. The risers flung away, and I was at last free on the surface, or so I thought.
While I rested, the current in the bay and the wind carried me into the unseen parachute shroud lines, and they began tangling around my diving tank and regulator. When I was pulled from the water, I had these lines all over my tank and my leg. It took a few minutes to clear up the mess. Then I was asked by one of the instructors, “What would you have done if this was a mission?” The implication was that I would have needed rescuing rather than being the rescuer.
I had a good reply, and pulled out my diving knife with its seven-inch long blade, the orange-handled Sportsways dive knife with the Soligen stainless steel I had gotten from my parents several years prior for my birthday. Unlike the military-issue knives, with Japanese “stainless” steel that rusted and which would not hold an edge (and rarely were sharpened), this knife was razor sharp. I told them that I simply would have cut those lines off me like I did the fishing line that was a perpetual problem for divers in the Pacific Northwest. But in a training situation, I couldn’t do that as it would destroy a valuable parachute. On a mission, the parachute was expendable, and they usually were allowed simply to sink.
I then told them of my problem with the riser, and the half-hitch over the group which precluded my using it for steering. I’m not sure that they believed me, but this allowed me to get through the jump. To this day I don’t know if that was purposely done in packing the chute, or accidentally happened either in the packing or the deployment.
Copyright 2014, John C. Ratliff