Time to improve accountability of 'drop zones in the sun'?
Who will carry out the independent technical inquiry of the avoidable death of Richard Taylor, a British student skydiver in Spain? Mr Taylor aged 34 was on an AFF course in Spain and it's quite likely that the real cause of his death last weekend may never be known. The Spanish Coroner cannot be expected to have the specialist skydiving knowledge to carry out a detailed investigation of the skydiving aspects and their viewpoint may well start from the premise of 'if you choose to partake in a hazardous sport them you must be prepared to pay the price'. There is however, much more to this situation. It's not just a sad skydiving accident because almost every skydiving death is avoidable.
Can the cause of skydiving death really be shock?
So far, we are told that the reason for Mr Taylors death is that he went into shock. Ask any skydiver, especially any skydiving instructors anywhere in the world what they think of this story that he 'went into shock' and you'll get some interesting answers about this.
We are told that Richard Taylor had already done four jumps before his final jump. Now, let's consider the process of learning to skydive for a moment; Iin a properly executed accelerated free fall course (AFF) carried out by licensed AFF Instructors, the first three levels include two instructors whose sole purpose in the air is to look after the safety and progression of their sole student. If either of those instructors have reason to believe that the student is unable to overcome the 'sensory overload' which affects most people to a greater or lesser extent, then they are duty bound to review the options of the student. This may well include cutting his course short and suggesting that he may not be able to continue. Sometimes its possible to overcome this 'fear factor' with a 're-jump'. This is another jump at the same level, probably with two instructors and they idea is to develop the students confidence and allow them to then continue with their course. Someone who by level four or five, still has significant anxiety problems deserves special counselling and support, and at approved drop zones that's almost always what they get. What was the medical and psycho/emotional state of Richard Taylor before he started training? Did he require a medical certificate and was this checked by the drop zone operators?
Altitude awareness and Instructor proximity in AFF
AFF students are taught to recover from instability (tumbling) during their AFF ground school and certain essential emergency drills such as this should, under the BPA system, be refreshed on a daily basis before jumping with the students by their instructor. Sometimes AFF students do go into a spin or a tumble, in fact on level six, we almost expect them to lose stability because by that time the exercise is on how to carry out intentional backloops. By this time they have demonstrated confidence and control over 2 dimensional manoeuvres (turns). When they do tumble, it's in the knowledge that the AFF instructor is specially selected and trained to fly alongside the student throughout these manoeuvres. In an AFFI training in-air evaluation, 'if you get more than six feet away from your student you've failed!'. Although we live in a less than perfect world and students do sometimes escape, the AFF Instructor operates constantly on a heightened sense of anticipation, perhaps not quite a 'spider sense' but you get the picture. The AFF instructor therefore strives to be one step ahead of a student when they make a mistake in the air. Even if we don't always achieve the six foot rule in the real world away from the evaluators critical gaze, AFF Instructors occasionally have to 'rugby tackle' tumbling students, to then quickly achieve a 're-set' for the student. It's a different skill to four way sequential or free flying and it sometimes requires a lot of courage and focus to execute. The instructor works to safety heights and generally aims for the student to be flat, stable and preparing for live pull of their main parachute by 5,000ft agl before pulling his or her own parachute by the 2,500ft 'hard deck'. What happened in the air this time? What level was Richard on and what was he briefed to do? Where is the in-air video that documents the event, which most AFF Instructors now use on their own helmets. I wonder if we'll ever know?
AAD saves lives, as long as it's working
If all else fails the instructor can and should fall back onto the automatic activation device othe wise known as an 'AAD', which should be calibrated at the beginning of the day and should remain switched on throughout the dive. It should have been regularly serviced by an approved and certified parachute technician. This AAD initiates activation of the reserve parachute, which itself is designed to deploy and operate under extremely adverse conditions. Both of these work extremely well and we may well never know whether this AAD really 'fired' or whether the reserve actually tried to deploy. So what was the state of Richard Taylors borrowed equipment? There is no indication of a technical investigation by independent parachute examiners.
Cheap skydiving courses can spoil your day
The 're-jump' system works fairly well, although the student has to pay for this rejump and many students will plead with their instructor to not impose this, simply to save some money. Because of this, most UK drop zones charge rejumps at 'cost', some others charge full rate. There are other approaches to anxiety management and many of these involve talking and counselling. Unfortunately for the AFF Instructor and for the drop zone these services are not really chargeable separately and students with specific anxieties can be Student skydivers shop around on the internet for 'cheap skydiving courses' and become bewitched by claims of better weather and cheaper prices in Spain. For an AFF instructor who does this job for a living, it means they can get less jumps in a day and therefore they earn less.
Introducing the commercial imperitive into a course which is probably time limited by a holiday date and flights back to the home country, means that you start from an inbuilt tension. Add a good measure of group pressure from the other course members, throw in a 'relaxation session' in the evening in the bar with the other students with a little too much wine, and a touch of an early morning start with still elevated levels of alcohol and we start to slide down the slippery slope. It's all about management of these factors and how is this monitored? All AFF instructors know this and the many AFF instructors who professionally train their students in the home country and them take them abroad to better weather locations are well versed in managing these multiple variables. They get to know know the students better as a result and they are less pressured by the needs to complete all levels within a seven day period because they know that they have the fall-back solution of taking their student to a home country dropzone to finish off any remaining jumps which need to be completed. The student gets the comfort of a legal system that could in a worst case scenario, pursue a UK based instructor for negligence. It's never happened.
Cheap skydiving vacation? You get what you pay for
UK dropzones have become used to dealing with students who have been unable to complete their course abroad and have returned home with a partially completed course. Because many have been trained by instructors who are not BPA qualified, even though they are English speaking, these 'unfinished' students then may have to pay extra for retraining or refresher. It is natural for a generation which has leaned to shop around on the internet to look a good deal on the web. Yet paying for professional services, especially those which may one day be required to save your life, may well be false economy. You can't go back to ebay or the credit card company to get your life back. If you are in your home country or operating with an instructor who is based in the home country you know that your instructor is happy for their own standards and deliverables to be supervised and quality assured by the governing body, in this case the British Parachute Association. If you choose to learn outside of BPA scrutiny, its like choosing to drive your car uninsured. It's fine until you have an accident.
Regulation in European skydiving
Are student skydivers taking European law for granted by assuming that safety regulation in these locations is standardised and similar to their home country? The reality is that the students take it for granted that because they have British speaking instructors that everything else is as they find in UK, except cheaper. Mr Taylor was British and if this tragic event had happened in a British Parachute Association (BPA) approved drop zone there would be an immediate independent inquiry by a team of BPA Examiners. The outcome would become public domain and be made available to the authorities and the important lessons would be learned from it. These lessons can and do support changes in training, operations and management procedures and each are backed up by ammendments to the BPA operations manual, which all instructors must adhere to, or else they can (and sometimes do) lose their licence to teach. The BPA system is well proven, capable and it has teeth which has made significant improvements in student safety statistics over a period of many years. The BPA operates as a non for profit organisation and receives virtually no public funding, with all its activities being funded by membership subscriptions. The BPA maintains official and audiatable statistics of numbers of jumps, injuries and fatalities in various categories of skydivers and it takes prudent and effective action to ensure that we learn and avoid recurrences. Some non-regulated drop zones around the world can make statements such as 2 fatalities in 200,000 jumps and 30 years, knowing that there is nobody who can really check this as we can under the UK legal system. When you've shopped on the internet and have no legal redress, how useful are these statements? Grieving familiies are less likely to pursue because most of the time they do not even realise that there was an alternative but sadly instead the cheap internet deal turned out to be false economy, and the cost was far greater than anyone ever expected.
What doesn't the BPA have? It doesn't have the funding to assist the local Spanish Coroners in their inquiries or their invitation. Perhaps it should.
Where is the European Commission when you really need it?
Despite the willingness of the European Commission to fund expensive but relatively minor legislation on what certain food are allowed to be called, there is no funding available to support investigations such as for the sad deaths of British students in Spain over the recent years. It turns out that the final arbiter of safety and quality in these drop zones in the sun is the owner/operator. They do not have to affiiliate to any organisation and they are not inspected nor supervised by any governing body. In fact this is what attracts many of them to these locations in the first place. There may well have been other student injuries or deaths from other countries that have happened in other 'warm drop zones' but these have not shown up on our radar screen, possibly because they may be in different (but still European) languages. Is this just another example of Brits being willing to stick to the rules which others freely flout? There are relatively few who pay the price for this, and yet in an environment which is governed by minorities, why has this minority been forgotten?
Student skydivers need supervision, experienced skydivers need freedom
The reality is that skydiving is a risk sport, and all skydivers freely acknowledge this. Nobody wants to be legislated and restricted in their leisure interests and nobody needs that. Many skydivers go to Spain and other countries to find better weather and less restrictive legislative environments and a number of drop zones have grown their business significantly on this basis. Experienced skydivers who, for example are required to always weat helmets under BPA rules enjoy the opportunity to feel the wind in their hair and use only a set of goggles when jumping in these warmer climates and this works out absolutely fine.
The problem is that these rules were designed by governing bodies such as the BPA, to protect the safety of individuals and to minimise the liability of drop zones and their owners. Is it right to just move country of operation, even within the EU, to avoid them? Its a different thing completely to consider students and less experienced skydivers, who need greater supervision and support to safely graduate from their training and to get to a stage where they can manage the inherent risks and take responsibility for themselves. In this case Richard Taylor was still in a student category and therefore under the supervision of his Accelerated Free Fall Instructor, using equipment loaned to him under the terms of his AFF course and operating under methods and systems which were managed by an independent non-affiliated drop zone.
Who will investigate the death of Richard Taylor?
This may well be just a sad case of misadventure, or maybe more. We won't know until there is a proper enquiry carried out by independent qualified examiners.
So, who is going to carry out the independent technical enquiry on the skydiving aspects of the death of Richard Taylor? Who will ensure the independent review makes it into the public domain? Who will enable his family and friends to have proper closure? Who will be able to show what went wrong and how to ensure it doesn't happen again?
More questions than answers at this point. Why do I wonder if we'll ever get any of these answers? just because Richard died while jumping at an unregulated drop zone.
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