Parachute Practise Cited In Glider Bailout Fatality

Canada's Transportation Safety Board says pilots who routinely wear parachutes should also regularly skydive. The TSB has issued an Air Transportation Safety Investigation Report into a fatal gliding accident near Calgary in May of 2024 in which the pilot, Kerry Stevenson of Calgary, who had more than 30 years of experience, bailed out of his soaring plane in a competition but his chute didn't open. This investigation didn't contain findings or recommendations but the evidence presented suggested the pilot, who had never jumped out of an aircraft before, didn't succeed in operating the parachute. The unactivated parachute was determined to be functional even though it was past its repacking and inspection due dates.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/parachute-practise-cited-in-glider-bailout-fatality

Spinning at 1,150 AGL? Why abandon the aircraft? even a hot ship should recover from an incipient spin in less than 300 ft. Something going on here that is not explained in the article. What height was he when he abandoned ship? When I was gliding it was widely believed that 600ft was the minimum needed for full canopy deployment at the time of deciding to leap out. So 100ft for canopy jettison 100ft for quick release and climbing out, 100ft for deploying the canopy, leaving a 300ft margin.

Like the article said “He didn’t practice”.

I’m reminded of the saying, “in an emergency you don’t rise to the occasion - you sink to your level of training.”

I’m going to speculate here given the lack of details in the article, and my own lack of experience (i.e. - zero) flying a glider. But as a former skydiver, I suspect the previous bailout practice on the ground involved opening the canopy, undoing the belts, then climbing (“falling”) out of the cockpit, followed by Look-Reach-Pull (“look for the ripcord handle, reach for the handle, pull the handle”).

Except during practice with your own rig you won’t actually pull the handle. Because that would deploy the parachute and require a rigger to repack it. So your practice involves just touching the handle. During an actual emergency, the stress of wind noise, ground rush, and no small amount of adrenaline may find oneself doing just as practiced - touch (but not pull) the handle.

It reminds me of an accident where a Piper ran out of fuel at low altitude and ditched in the Hudson River. The pilot said when the engine failed they ran through the mental checklist to switch tanks but to no avail. When the plane was recovered they found fuel in one tank, but the selector was pointed to the empty one. Further analysis found that during the pilot’s training for handling an engine-out emergency they would verbalize their actions (“boost pump on … switch tanks”) but wouldn’t actually perform those actions. Instead, they would touch the boost pump switch, and touch the fuel-selector handle. Again, in an emergency they reverted to trained habit.

As Vince Lombardi would’ve put it, practice doesn’t make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.

When someone brings their parachute to a rigger for its scheduled repack, it’s common for riggers to make the customer put it on, then look, reach, and actually PULL the ripcord. This in an effort to develop that ‘muscle memory’ of actually pulling the handle for real. In the case of the glider pilot in the above story the rig was out-of-date*, so it appears he didn’t even have this bit of recent practice under his belt.

(I want to stress that I’m not trying to blame the pilot. 1,000 feet AGL is a very low altitude to begin the bailout process. Assuming zero vertical velocity that’s roughly ten seconds from impact. If the glider was already in a dive then the time drops dramatically. In that time one needs to find the canopy handle and jettison it, undo the seatbelts, then climb out, finally look-reach-pull… it’s quite possible that even if he did everything right he simply ran out of time and altitude before getting to the last step. It really sucks that in life sometimes a simple mistake is fatal).

Even though I recommend everyone try a skydive at least once (it’s fun!), I don’t know that it’s necessary for bailout training. Instead, having a practice rig that allows one to actually pull the handle, and then regularly practice with that rig to help build a solid, reliable habit, would be a benefit.

  • I agree with the CTSB that the rig being out-of-date was not a factor. Years ago when it was proposed to increase the reserve/emergency chute repack cycle from 120 to 180 days, there was concern about reliability and opening times from having a parachute tightly packed for 6 months. I recall some testing where parachutes packed for months (or years) were strapped to 180-lb test dummies and tossed out of planes with a static-cord. They found the opening times did increase slightly within the first few months. But after 6 months or so all parachutes opened within specifications, even one rig that had been packed for ten years! That being said, getting a piece of last-chance equipment regularly inspected is a good idea.
1 Like

I have substantial experience in both skydiving and flying sailplanes. A spin at 1,150 feet would involve some pretty significant G forces both positive and negative. Even if ANY pilot managed to separate oneself from the aircraft, there would be no time left to assure that you are clear of aircraft, canopy and other debris, orient oneself, get stable (body tumbling/spinning), arch, look, reach and pull (the ripcord) and have a successful clear deployment of the chute before impact. All these things would have been on my mind. There was absolutely not enough altitude/time for success.

3 Likes

Based on the discussion here, it sounds like trying to bail out at such a low altitude was perhaps the major factor. At that altitude he may have been better off staying with the aircraft.

Where is the Spin Training? At over 1,000’ AGL there is plenty of time to recover even the most sluggish glider. It takes a second or two to recognize the incipient spin (you should really be well ahead of the spin by watching your air speed and AOA) but after that, muscle memory should kick in - neutralize the alerions and elevator, full opposite rudder to stop the spin, then pull out of the dive. Sure, you’ll be close to the ground and have to land in some unwelcoming territory, but it beats face-planting into Mother Earth.

1 Like

1,150 ft is NOT low. 300 ft IS low for exiting a glider (probably fatal). Something else was happening that is not explained in the article.

“A spin at 1,150 feet would involve some pretty significant g forces both positive and negative.” Not in a spin!! That would be a spiral dive, which is much harder to get out of in one piece than a spin. Spins in gliders are very low g events (note lower case g, Upper case G is the Gravitational Constant, something else altogether)

1 Like

It seems to me that “recognizing and recovering from” an incipient spin is either not taught or not taught well enough. Better still would be spin recovery training which also teaches the lead-in to an actual spin.

Given the height mentioned in the article, I would not consider jumping. As said above, neutralize rudder and ailerons and (I would apply) forward stick. Recovering from a stall in a glider is simplicity itself.

I lost a friend a few years back when he stalled his brand new high performance glider in the traffic pattern on his 10th flight in the aircraft. He went in vertically from 1,000 ft AGL. He had also lost it on his 3rd flight as well on final approach, the glider performing 270 degrees of a barrel roll on short final and he told me that he just let go of the stick and the glider recovered itself. He had the presence of mind to grab the stick and flare, landing 90 degrees to the runway and very close to the approach end.

I don’t see the training these days necessary to recover from an unusual situation.

The accident report says the pilot entered an incipient spin but recovered after losing about 200’ (1,350’ down to 1,100’). It then gain a few feet of altitude before the pilot bailed out.

What the accident report does not explain is why the pilot felt it necessary to bail out. This glider had an electric sustainer motor. After recovering from a spin, why was he not able to land out? Or use the sustainer motor to remain aloft? It doesn’t explain if there were no suitable fields for landing, or if the battery was discharged on the motor. All it mentions is the airplane had no pre-impact control issues and that the motor was not running at impact.

Could the rip cord not be attached to the glider? Pros? Cons?

I’ve looked through the accident report. The pilot was experienced, but new to that glider and hadn’t practiced stalls, spins, or even tight turns on it (as used in thermalling) before coming to the contest. He spun the glider, but it recovered, maybe on its own because the canopy was jettisoned just after the glider was seen to recover. Too hasty a decision to bail. Then he actually got out quickly, around 1000 to 1100’ AGL maybe, low but with enough margin. Yet then he didn’t pull the ripcord. Not even at too low an altitude, but not at all. There were quibbles about when the rig was last packed, but nothing to suggest it wouldn’t have worked fine.
The report doesn’t look into the fit of the rig, but I’m guessing it might not have been snug and the harness shifted on his body, so the ripcord handle shifted too, and he couldn’t find it in time. A really unfortunate series of events.
The report way overdoes things suggesting that he should have been an active skydiver to be able to better handle his gear, but while that is technically true, nobody expects that of glider or aerobatic pilots. Still, some more practice with the safety equipment makes sense. As for glider pilots making a jump or two for practice, as a skydiver I’d say it helps with general comfort in getting out in a wind blast (avoiding being shocked by the sensations), but civilian student skydiving & skydiving gear is so different from a bailout & bailout rig, that there are few specific skills that would transfer over at all.

Every glider pilot that uses a parachute should watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDXIxHAmSX0

1 Like

Way too many ways to get the static line tangled up with the aircraft or pilot especially if the aircraft is spinning or out of control. Being a skydiver, as I was 50 years ago, would help in a bailout but just a couple of jumps wouldn’t help much and most pilots would be disinclined to start jumping for the small advantage in an unlikely event.

1 Like

Hi from the UK,

The report only mentions that the glider went into a spin after the pilot departed. This is of course expected when the CofG goes behind the spar…

In UK gliding we stopped using the term “incipient spin” some years ago. In fact, what the report describes is a “stall with wing drop”, which is trivial to recover by relaxing the back pressure on the stick. People I’ve spoken to who fly LAK 17B describe it as benign in the stall, even in +3. In this case the pilot had 750 hours, which is not nothing, and “had provided instruction”, but was new on type. Unfortunately we’ll never know what else was happening in the cockpit that led him to conclude that bailing out was the best option. There have been accidents in the past where a pilot has heard a bang from the airframe and decided to jump, even though there was nothing wrong. Not saying that’s what happened here.

Static lines for parachutes are really rare in gliding, slightly less rare in international competitions and in Germany. I think I’ve seen two pilots using them in 25 years. Not all parachutes are designed for a static line, and there is the risk you forget to disconnect it after you land and now you have to find a repacker…

The report says that he was thermalling on “the left downwind leg for Runway 25” so from 1100 ft AGL there was no need to consider landing out, or using the engine. Something spooked him and he was convinced he needed to jump.

With respect to the TSB, I’m quite disappointed in this report. They had limited information, but the focus on the parachute is just insulting. There would never be an accident report blaming, for example, the undercarriage digging into soft ground in a field, when the actual cause is the engine having exploded at 300ft.

Thoughts are with his family. Not knowing what happened is agony for them.

orient oneself, get stable (body tumbling/spinning), arch

As a skydiver, you should know that these are not on the priority list. Clear and pull should be the focus, especially since almost all glider pilots lack any skill or capacity for becoming stable, and there’s no time to figure it out, especially in a low altitude emergency.

1 Like

For a student/beginner skydiver the mantra has always been “Arch, look, reach, pull”. I think this is a good mantra when training glider pilots. Peter-C mentioned the shifted harness. Absolutely agree! This is why you must “look”.
Somebody mentioned 1,000 feet was not too low. I agree if everything is perfect and the glider is straight and level. If things are out of control, 1,000 feet is really dicey at best. Skydivers have to deploy at 2,500 (2,000 for C and D license holders). This provides time to deal with a main chute malfunction with time to cutaway the main, deploy the reserve and still pick a spot to land safely.
Someone else said that a spin is low G. Ok, I believe that but still a very dicey thing to get out of a glider that you are laying prone in, with legs under a console, no?

The report doesn’t say the glider was in a spin. Getting out with any amount of >1 positive g is probably impossible, even sitting up would be a challenge. Depending on the circumstances it might be possible to roll inverted so you fall out, or push really hard on the stick so you are thrown out. If you don’t have a tail, you can’t have positive g. If a glider were in a spin the g will be low, perhaps fluctuating between 0.5 g and 1.5 g. The wings are almost level and the airspeed is very low, so getting out should not be hard.

But yes, from 1000 ft unless you are determined and have at least practiced mentally, you really don’t have very long.

We suffered the tragic loss of a friend and very experienced glider pilot 2 years ago. Two gliders collided at 2900 ft, the tail of one glider was severed and he did not have enough time to get out. As G Dale says, trying to bail out below 3000 ft is really risky.

1 Like