The DZ.Com article wont open for me but the Go Skydiving Nashville incident is all over the place.
As a younger man, I did TONS of tandems from a Cessna 182 (which I think is the aircraft they were jumping). There are very few things I can imagine that would cause a tandem pair to get "stuck" on the side of that plane. It is technically possible, but in my opinion, improbable that something could have just gotten "stuck" on the jump step. A properly rigged instructor/student and even the worst imaginable exit - in my mind - makes that seem all but impossible. The excerpt from Facebook mentions a step; again, possible but improbable that unstowed excess webbing from a leg strap could have snagged the jump step.
If by some chance it was an Otter or a Caravan, "maybe" something could have snagged on a camera step - again - in my wildest imagination that is also nearly impossible given a rigged student and all but the worst of tandem exits.
One thing comes to mind - maybe a seat belt wasn't cleared or stowed properly and snagged on something on the tandem pair. However, once the seat belt was cut, the pair would be free and the drama would have been pretty much over. No way cutting a seat belt under those circumstances would have caused the pair to "become separated"
Unstowed webbing from a leg strap, or even a poorly stowed drogue could have caused them to get hung up - hard to imagine with my limited intelligence - but I supposed it could happen. Again, cutting any strap that was towing the pair would have freed them from their predicament - but still doesn't explain how they got separated.
-The AAD is on the parachute. It is not on the student. The idea that a properly trained tandem instructor cutting away parachute components so the student could land under a reserve deployed by the AAD doesn't really pass my sniff test.
-The instructor is wearing the parachute. Anything that is going to inadvertently separate the instructor from the student is also going to separate the student from the parachute.
-"According to people on the DZ, the gear was donned properly and all 4 hookups were intact" - if that is true, there is no way I can imagine that the instructor just "fell out" while the student somehow remained safe and sound with a harness/container that was still apparently in a good enough structural condition for a canopy to deploy and safely carry a suspended jumper back to earth.
-Here's where things get silly - that canopy in the tree does NOT look like a reserve that was deployed from an AAD fire. Tandem reserves are almost ALWAYS solid colors - bright solid colors that stand out and scream "hey look at me, I'm an open reserve canopy" - the one in the picture is black and red. Custom colors? Maybe - But that drop zone makes it clear on their web site that they are a "tandem factory" and those kind of operations are not wasting money on custom color reserve canopies. My bet is that the student landed under a deployed main canopy.
-I'd also have to hear the PILOT say, ON THE RECORD - " At some point during this he fell out of his harness. The student was still hung up when Spidey fell. The student fell off the step sometime after"
...then I might give a "the general gist" report any credibility. Otherwise, no tandem passenger just "falls off the step sometime after" under those circumstances - not after the instructor went full-on 'hook-knife-ninja' on the equipment they were BOTH wearing.
Furthermore - pilots don't release "general gist" statements to anyone - because they KNOW that the FAA, DOT, Local Law Enforcement, and more importantly..
LAWYERS
...are lining up to ask for sworn statements that will be used against the pilot AND the drop zone when this makes its way into the courts.
The POLICE said that several other jumpers that jumped "moments before" landed safely. That is something I believe.
My mind reads "several other jumpers" as "the other tandem pair and their cameraman" That also fits with the amount of room in a Cessna-182. I have been at a drop zone that used a pair of 182 wide-bodies to churn out tandems and that also means these folks were the last ones out. Nobody but the pilot knows what happened in that door and I'm betting he ain't spreading any rumors because the pilot is responsible for everything that happens in his plane.
Waaaay more going on here than just "fell the fuck out of a correctly rigged tandem system"
Tragedy from all angles
