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Well, I guess writing your own accident report is better than not being able to write at all. Ill make this as quick and painless as possible:

Jumped the eiger mushroom with a BJ 260 and 38" vented ZP PC, in a tracking suit stuffed to the brim with gear. Knew I wouldn't get as good a track with so much stuff in my suit so I was cautious and pulled a little higher than I am used to. Immediately I had a violently spinning canopy to the left. Pumped brakes several times hard and fast, and nothing changed. I tried to counteract the turn and nothing helped. Finally I grabbed my right rear riser and slowed down the turn a bit but the canopy kind of stalled out on me and kept spinning. I impacted the wall numerous times while spinning and attempted to kick away from the wall each time and make the imminent impact as good as possible. I finally impacted on a ledge high up on the 'Mordwand' where I knew I was too injured to get off, but fine internally. I pushed the emergency button on my spot messenger, stashed my gear(stupid) and waited for rescue while lying in a stream of melt water on my precarious perch.


I dropped my helmet while I was on the ledge. It had 2 GoPro's on it and I would LOVE to have the footage back to analyze what really went wrong. I originally thought line over but the more I think about it the more I think that my canopy might have been nice and square. Maybe a tension knot? I don't know. If anyone knows anyone climbing on the north face of the eiger any time soon or just messing around near the base below the mushroom, if you happen to find my black pro tec helmet with dual go pros I would do anything to get the footage back. Ill either pay you for the gopros or you can keep them and just send me the memory cards, I honestly just want the footage so I can figure out what happened and have some closure if possible. The helmet could be anywhere directly below the mushroom all the way down to the valley if the helmet rolled far enough.

I guess that honestly there is not much to learn from this incident other than track hard, pack well, take care of your gear, and don't go in!

Did you use the locking stow in the tailpocket when you packed? And, if so, how tightly do you wrap it?

Myself and a couple of others are heading to the Valley in a week or so, we'll have as good a look as we can at the base of the Eiger while we're in the area.
Cheers

 
you know Sorcerers may not be cool any more, they're totaly out of fashion, but...

Lee

sounds like a tension knot

saw exact same thing happen in norway this year

learnt from Kiwi Mal (thanks mate) how to get out of them - a bit of a gem I hadnt heard before.

look up the lines to see where the problem is, pull as hard as you can on the offending riser, then let it go and most of the time it will release. Speak to a v experienced tandem master and they can explain in more detail.

Do you jump an older BJ with the longer 5th control line? I've known people who had issues with tension knots from that setup on an Ace and BJ.

That is a good piece of knowledge to have for sure, thanks. It is hard to convince yourself to increase the rate of turn but if it works, it works.


it is a 2002 BJ but I had the 5th control line modded to match the current production model by moving it over 1/2 a cell I believe and adjusting the length.


yeah, 2 wraps of the locking stow nice and tight. I also use 2 wraps of blue painters tape around the steering lines up close to the attachment points.



Does anyone think the slightly oversized 38" PC had anything to do with it? Or is it less of a problem to use a bigger PC at high altitude like this due to lower snatch force?

What delay did u have for this 38" PC? More than 7 sec?

Hello

I am happy you can write your experience yourself, cool.

Technically, two things pops in my mind:

- 38'' sounds too big for this jump for me too

If the PC is too big, i think it might happen that the opening sequence doesnt work well. The slider, even double fixed might come down too early and be half way down before the canopy starts to inflate. Did you have a hard opening?
Line overs can be the bad results also.

(even tailgate+slider, which i hear more often, doesnt prevent this, just use an appropriate pc and no tailgate is necessary)

- how old are the lines? its known that on used lines (not nice smooth looking lines), tension knots happens more often, in case of doubt, change canopy (I still have one fox to sell ;-))

And for the small story: I am not sure if it was you, but a friend of mine was getting back with his client from the mountains very early. They had spare time and he wanted to show him the north face of the eiger by coming down from the joch. They went out by the "stollenloch", and as he explaind a bit the story of the north face to his client, you "landed" quite close to them. He called then the rescue too, he tried to climb to you, but he didnt have any equipement. (btw, I don't know how quick the rescue responds to the spot device here).


Have a nice day

yes its counterintuitive - consciously making things worse to make it better.

if it was a line over Mal gave similar gem. Pull the offending control line all the way down I mean all the way down just keep pulling that mutha till it slides off the nose and you are free. Again, seems counterintuitive as you are making things worse...at least for a bit...and then the sun comes out again

I've used a 42" vented ZP PC once during a skybase jump(by mistake), pulling at full terminal.
Of the 2 jumps that day on one of them i had a slider stuck half-way down the lines, cleared by pumping. I believe that a tension knot might have been the reason, so an over sized PC in defiantly a bad idea, and not just because of the hard openings.

definitely more than 7 seconds. Probably between 10 and 15 but I dont count, I just go by sight.


I would rather be able to post my mistakes and respond to questions than have people speculate about what may or may not have been without the truth as to the situation. I believe this is the best way to learn from our mistakes in BASE and I pray that we can learn something here and have no one else repeat them. I will certainly post the video for all to see if I get the memory cards back and that will no doubt help reveal what really went wrong.





I did not have a hard opening, it was pretty nice as for vented canopy standards at high speeds in my experience. The lines are from 2002 but have less than 100 jumps on them. I bought the canopy new last year from someone who had never jumped it. Also I am not sure if I landed close to your friend or not. I was jumping a green and blue canopy and landed moderately high on the rock on the north face.




I did know that about line overs and tried that first just in case but this time there was no stopping the spin with that technique

Interesting idea. By way of comparison, standard procedure for dealing with a cravat (essentially a line-over towards a wing tip) on a paraglider is to pump the control line and, if this fails, conduct a full stall and carefully get the wing flying again. However, you need height for this!

From my point of view even with all the gear in your suit the jumped look all but perfect.
I could not see a line over the canopy and it looked square.Not sure about your rescue alert but I quickly called for REGA.I am glad you survived...

I don't think you got it. He meant continuing to pull the steering line, like with two hands until you pull it all the way off the nose, not just pumping the brakes.

But, I'm curious why take this approach. Seems risky, like you could easily get too low and spin in HARD. Why not just counter act the turn with opposite rear, and either land it like that or cut the line? I've seen multiple line overs landed intact.

 

i have only a bit less than 700jumps now and maybe about half of them are SU...all SU jumps are with 38 and 36 depending which rig i use and it has worked fine for me. My rigs are not broken or in bad shape and im fine too. So please tell me in which theory that opinion of yours are based, is your gear broken? are you hurt?

I use a Toxic 38 with my Blackjack 260 and have had great openings for 40 slider-up jumps.

I think 38 is an appropriate size PC for the jump in question.

What is the height of the freefall more than 1500-2000 feet?

Are they all done with a wingsuit? If so, a 36 is understandable. If not why a 36..what happened to 32's?

From the Consolidated Rigging Manual for the BJ:

PILOT CHUTE SIZE (inches) FREEFALL DELAY (seconds)
46 1-2
42 2-4
38 4-7
32 8 to terminal

For this, in relation to the height of exit and opening above sea-level, a 38 seems not to be a mistake to me...

I have plenty of freefalls sans wingsuit (and some with WS as well) in 2000+ ft range and all with 36's and lately 38's. From my point of view the 32 is obsolete. 32's belong to the time when there was no tracking gear and we fell like a rock from the cliff. With modern tracking gear we can easily match the fallrate of some smaller wingsuits and if you would use 36/38 with those, why use 32 in tracking if the descent rate and forward speed is the same? I (and couple of other reasonably experienced trackers) have changed lately to 38's in tracking jumps as well. The reason being that 36's were constantly yielding into too slow and snivelly openings. A real eye opener for me was a jump where I literally snivelled in (had about 1s under fully inflated canopy) with my old, worn out 36. After going to a crispy ZP 38 the same 265 Troll opens like dream.

Right on, Thanks for the reply.

thanks for a great reply. it should remind people why just trusting information they find is not always the best. unsupported information should be considered a good place to start.

the best information (like yours) comes with rational based on experience or testing. as the years go by, new developments can make advice outdated. the experience and rational let people sort out what they should try.

your m0m uses a 32

What about smaller and also vented canopies like 220 feet? For that case is good a 38" PC? or a 32-36" one?

And also maybe is important if it used a small mesh silder or a large one..

I jump regularly 265 Trango which is equivivalent on the weight to 225 Troll. With Trango I use 38 for wingsuit and 36 for tracking. With my 265 Troll (vented) I use 38 for both. Couple of good friends I know jump 225 and 245 Trolls (vented) and use 38 for both tracking and wingsuit.

It all depends on what works for you but that's just our experience. If you jump very small and lightweight canopy like 225 Trango for example a 38 might be a an overkill. Then again with that small canopy you're bound to be quite lightweight jumper and the descent rate with modern tracking gear is bound to be quite small as well (given the fact you know how to use them of course). There are shitload of variables in the equation so there is no absolute right or wrong in it.

Try out different things and find the thing that works for your setup but never take as absolute fact the commendation somebody gives you as absolute truth!

Thanks for the kind advice...
Very nice from you

I am also using a 38 and large mesh slider on all terminal jumps, my canopies are a 185 Trango, 200 Flik Ultralight Vented, and a Flik 242 Vented. I am getting great opening characteristics with this setup across the board there has also been a situation where I feel things would have turned seriously bad if I had been using a smaller PC. I have been testing and inspecting the canopies and there appears to be no adverse effects caused by using the 38 so for me it is a simple decision.

Not @ Maretus.
Here is a
Relevant Thread. Can the Mods please quit jumping for a moment and move these posts to BASE Tech forum?
Take care,
space

I'd like to see the Incidents forum have more stories that do NOT end in fatalities. These provide reminders and teaching moments to everyone. At first, this thread fit well.

Since then, it has drifted into a more technical nature of pilot chutes and pilot chute selection. It now probably deserves to be in Technical.

Hello, thanks for posting about your accident. I had an accident from the Eiger on Aug 8th. We were in the Bern hospital at the same time (so I heard). Would've been nice to meet you & catch up in Switzerland, swap stories. Anyhow, I want to know...why do you feel it was "stupid" to stash your gear? I'm just curious. I had to remain fairly still due to my position & broken left leg, so stashing my gear wasn't even an option. However, my parachute is now decorating the Eiger & I get to save up to purchase a new one. Please reply if you get a chance, Kresta

Hey Kresta,

I only feel it was stupid because it probably made it harder for the rescuers to see me from the chopper on their first pass. The first thing they asked was 'where is your parachute and is it blue and green?' as the other person on the mushroom told them to be on the lookout for a blue and green chute. Also I guess I could have made my spinal fractures worse by moving but at that point I knew I was ok so I didn't think twice about that.

Wish we could have shared stories in the hospital too, lets just plan a trip back out to LB again next summer and make our respective 'redemption' jumps off the mushroom a 2-way together ;)


Also, to anyone in Switzerland or anyone who knows any climbers out there; my helmet and cameras are still up there awaiting someone to find them. I will pay multiple hundreds of dollars for the safe return of my helmet with helmet cams. It is probably quite low on the mountain, it may even possibly be in the grass at the foot of the rock directly below the mushroom, or at worst just a few pitches up. I'm hoping it gets found before the snow buries it. If not, maybe it'll still be up there next year and I can find it myself... If anyone could post about this on the euro base forums as well I would appreciate it.

To anyone who might go looking, shoot me a PM and Ill send you pics of where the ledge was that I dropped my helmet off of. REGA sent me pics of the rescue so I know exactly where I was when I dropped it and where it probably is.

I will search for free if you pay my airfare.

Glad you are ok though!

One of the reasons they were asking the color of your parachute was because when they came looking for you,They located another hurt person.Lucky for him as otherwise he would have been stuck there longer.
REGA called me and asked me what color it was,so at the end of the day there was a LOT of luck floating around on the North Face.......and both of you lived...