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Old 10-03-2018, 12:38   #16
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Originally Posted by Box View Post

There has to be a LOT more to this story than any of us will ever see in the newspapers.
Agree.

That instructor had to work hard to get out of the harness while leaving the student in "control".

Assisted suicide ?
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Old 10-03-2018, 14:01   #17
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Agree.

That instructor had to work hard to get out of the harness while leaving the student in "control".

Assisted suicide ?
That is what came to mind..
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Old 10-04-2018, 07:12   #18
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Originally Posted by Team Sergeant View Post
Agree.

That instructor had to work hard to get out of the harness while leaving the student in "control".

Assisted suicide ?
There's got to be an easier way to kill yourself than burning in from 10,000 feet. What if you got to 3 grand and changed your mind?
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Old 10-04-2018, 07:27   #19
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There's got to be an easier way to kill yourself than burning in from 10,000 feet. What if you got to 3 grand and changed your mind?
....Flap your Arms; Really, Really Fast.....
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Old 10-04-2018, 09:41   #20
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There's got to be an easier way to kill yourself than burning in from 10,000 feet. What if you got to 3 grand and changed your mind?
LOL, there was a documentary on idiots that jump from the San Fran Bridge, they placed a camera on likely jump sites for a whole year. Filmed many jumps, and one survived to tell his story. Said as soon as he jumped he knew he made a mistake..... but he lived through it.

My only guess is that this individual wanted to go out with a splash.
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Old 11-27-2018, 18:07   #21
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As many surmised...suicide.

Headlines below, link to complete article at bottom.

Skydiving instructor, 41, who mysteriously became separated from his student during a tandem jump, 'committed suicide by purposely releasing himself from their parachute MIDAIR'

Maine State Police said skydiving instructor Brett Bickford committed suicide

Bickford became separated from his student during September tandem jump

His body was found a day after incident in Lebanon, Maine; the student survived

Police said interviews with other skydivers led them to believe it wasn't a mistake
Investigators said Bickford, 41, intentionally 'loosened his harness midair'

Bickford detached a mile from landing, and without a parachute, police said
He was a seasoned instructor for Skydive New England in Lebanon, Maine

By VALERIE EDWARDS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 16:45 EST, 27 November 2018 | UPDATED: 17:21 EST, 27 November 2018

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...t-mid-air.html
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Old 11-28-2018, 09:01   #22
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As many surmised...suicide.

Headlines below, link to complete article at bottom.

Skydiving instructor, 41, who mysteriously became separated from his student during a tandem jump, 'committed suicide by purposely releasing himself from their parachute MIDAIR'

Maine State Police said skydiving instructor Brett Bickford committed suicide

Bickford became separated from his student during September tandem jump

His body was found a day after incident in Lebanon, Maine; the student survived

Police said interviews with other skydivers led them to believe it wasn't a mistake
Investigators said Bickford, 41, intentionally 'loosened his harness midair'

Bickford detached a mile from landing, and without a parachute, police said
He was a seasoned instructor for Skydive New England in Lebanon, Maine

By VALERIE EDWARDS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 16:45 EST, 27 November 2018 | UPDATED: 17:21 EST, 27 November 2018

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...t-mid-air.html


LOL, yup, didn't take barney fife long to figure that one out..........
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Old 11-28-2018, 09:33   #23
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LOL, yup, didn't take barney fife long to figure that one out..........
Lol, well coulda been some unlucky dude with dirt on Hillary...
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Old 11-28-2018, 12:19   #24
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Originally Posted by tonyz View Post
As many surmised...suicide.

Police said interviews with other skydivers led them to believe it wasn't a mistake
Investigators said Bickford, 41, intentionally 'loosened his harness midair'

Bickford detached a mile from landing, and without a parachute, police said
With my luck, he would have loosened my harness in midair instead of his.....Now why would you commit suicide on a tandem jump w/a student? What if you f'd up and took the student with you? Hey, he should have just jumped out of the airplane w/out his chute...now that would have been the way to do it....just saying....
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Old 11-28-2018, 12:31   #25
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In September a Skydive New England spokesperson said the freefall was 'uneventful' and that the only incident was that the instructor went missing.
Would they make the same statement if the jump aircraft landed without the pilot?

"The flight was uneventful, the landing was nominal, and the only incident was that the cockpit was empty."
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Old 12-03-2018, 19:40   #26
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One of the team members used to bring in the "Parachutist" magazine and we'd go right to the back pages and read the "cause of death" obits........

Cause of death: Impact

Cause of death: Impact

Cause of death: Impact

Cause of death: Impact

Cause of death: Impact

Cause of death: Hanging

Some of them should have read: Cause of death: Stupidity.

I'm betting the base jumpers have a really fun to read cause of death section.......
And people ask me why I have no interest on going on a Tandem.....
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Old 02-18-2019, 21:30   #27
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The February 2019 'Parachutist' Magazine published the incident report....

Quote:
Description:
After an uneventful freefall and normal main-canopy deployment at approximately 6,000 feet during a tandem skydive, the instructor followed routine tandem procedures, which included performing a check for canopy controllability and adjusting the harness for landing and the comfort of the student. The instructor then briefed the student on how to steer and land the canopy. About two minutes of silence followed. After the silence, the student reported feeling “jostling” behind him and then saw his instructor’s legs coming up in front of him. He reached back and discovered his instructor was no longer with him. The student, realizing he was alone and not flying toward the airport, used the toggles that he still had in his hands from the briefing to turn the canopy to face the airport and line up with the runway. He followed the runway until he landed near the end of it. He landed in a sitting position with his legs up, as he had learned in his ground briefing before the jump, and walked away unassisted. Medical professionals examined him later and reported that he sustained only minor bruising. Several agencies immediately began an exhaustive search for the instructor using aircraft and other techniques. They found him deceased approximately 27 hours later in a heavily wooded area northwest of the intended landing area.

Conclusions:
Multiple organizations—including the state police, the Federal Aviation Administration and the gear manufacturer—conducted an extensive, almost two-month-long investigation into this incident. The FAA and the gear manufacturer performed an inspection of the equipment and found no defects. After interviewing industry experts and concluding that an experienced skydiver would not accidentally loosen a harness enough to slip out, the state police ruled the death a suicide. They did not report whether the instructor left behind a note. Additionally, the coroner sent fluid and tissue samples to a medical lab for toxicology testing, which tested for a variety of substances, including cannabinoids. Unlike a standard urinalysis, which tests for the inactive metabolite THC, post-mortem testing detects the primary psychoactive agents in marijuana—Delta-9 THC and Delta-9 Carboxy THC—and can determine whether a person was actively under the influence of marijuana at the time of death. The report for this jumper indicated that he had sufficient levels of Delta-9 THC and Delta-9 Carboxy THC in his system to be considered under the influence and suggests that he had likely ingested marijuana shortly before the jump. Being under the influence of marijuana may have affected this jumper’s judgment. It is against FAA and USPA regulations to skydive while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Federal Aviation Regulation Part 105.7 states the following: “No person may conduct a parachute operation, and no pilot in command of an aircraft may allow a person to conduct a parachute operation from that aircraft if that person is or appears to be under the influence of— (a) Alcohol, or (b) Any drug that affects that person’s faculties in any way contrary to safety.” Additionally, tandem instructors must hold an FAA Third-Class Medical Certificate, which requires reporting drug use—legal or illegal—since the last renewal of the medical. Thankfully, positive test results for drug or alcohol use following a skydiving fatality are rare. It goes without saying that jumping while impaired by any drug or alcohol adds risk not only to the impaired jumper but all other jumpers on the load, the pilot and the drop zone owner, as well as people on the ground.


Age: 41
Sex: Male
Time in Sport: 10 years
Total Number of Jumps: 4,509
Skydives Within the Last 12 Months: 464
Cause of Death: Blunt-force trauma after striking the ground with no parachute
System: UPT Sigma Tandem
Main: United Parachute Technologies Sigma 340
Wing Loading: 1.26:1
Reserve: United Parachute Technologies VR 360 360
AAD: Airtec
Helmet: Gath (open-face)
RSL: Yes

Absolutely Despicable human being to put a tandem passenger through this kind of shit show.
Pull your steering wheel into a bridge abutment - suck start your Mossberg - or jump out of your own fucking harness - but putting another person at risk like this makes me want to take a shit on this guy's final resting place.
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Old 02-18-2019, 21:45   #28
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When I was working on my Commercial PL in the '70s I flew up to Casa Grande, AZ, and flew observer a couple of times in their Loadstar. Walking around the "meat bomb" assembly area I heard that several of them took LSD before jumps. Always figured that guys who jump out of aircraft were a little crazy.
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Old 02-18-2019, 22:24   #29
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Casa Grande....
hahahahaha

I used to work at a DZ in Casa Grande on the weekends when I was stationed in Yuma.
There is an interesting crowd living in the Coolidge area - you could visit that DZ and it would make you swear that the movie "Fandango" was a documentary
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Opinions stated in this post are solely those of the author, and in no way reflect the opinions or policies of The Department of Defense, The United States Army, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, The Screen Actors Guild, The Boy Scouts, The Good, The Bad, or The Ugly. These opinions are provided purely as overly sarcastic social commentary and are not meant to be used for mission planning or navigation.

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Last edited by Box; 02-18-2019 at 22:35.
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Old 02-18-2019, 22:49   #30
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Casa Grande....
hahahahaha

I used to work at a DZ in Casa Grande on the weekends when I was stationed in Yuma.
There is an interesting crowd living in the Coolidge area - you could visit that DZ and it would make you swear that the movie "Fandango" was a documentary
I had an encounter at Coolidge about the same time. Flying back from PHX to Freeway Airport, in Tucson, as I was about to cross the Coolidge APT I saw a Huey flying above me. Then I saw something fall from it, then another, and another. They had an airshow going on and these guys were part of it. I had to crank hard to the left as the jumpers passed in front of me. It wasn't in the NOTAMS when I left PHX. It was crazy flying in AZ back then.
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