Minor incident at Otay

[billvon 3,049]

We had a minor close call at Otay this Sunday; I think it illustrates the importance of communication between groups.

We were doing a sunset 10-way for someone's 500th jump. In the plane, a freeflyer asked one of the jumpers on the load if he could go with us. "No, you have to give us like 15 seconds," she said. Then he asked the cameraman, who said he had no problem with it.

He exited with us, did a sit-fly, then dropped below us. We built 2 out of 3 planned points on the 10-way and then broke off. On breakoff, I saw a canopy in front of and below me at about 2500 feet, so I stopped tracking to pass in front of him before pulling. I was glad that it had been me tracking in his direction and not someone with 300 jumps who may have been paying more attention to their track than what was below them.

At first I thought it had been a freeflyer who had given us not much separation in the door, but after noting his canopy and seeing who it was (and asking the divers what happened) I realized he had just followed us out.

Afterwards I talked to him and told him that it's ordinarily no problem to jump in what is essentially a camera slot, but that he had to talk to the organizer _before_ doing something like that. I lost a friend of mine years back when he basically changed the dive plan halfway through the dive, and ended up getting above someone who thought he had clear air. It's very important for jumpers who want to do things like lurk dives to talk about what they want to do _beforehand_ so that plans for breakoff, camera pullout etc can be modified accordingly.

[Mixoligist 0]

Plan the dive.......dive the plan


your awarness may have saved both of you

..................................
Better you than me
..................................

[mollyo 0]

also, I begged this skydiver (with the cameraman on our jump obviously present) not to 'lurk us' twice. This was my skydive & this was not part of the dive plan. Please wait 15 seconds. He just laughed.

please, please everyone, go with the dive plan! Our sport is dangerous enough, lets not increase it when we don't have to.

[ChileRelleno 0]

Bad! Very Bad Skydiver!!!
I hope you did more than just "talk" to this irresponsible and dangerous indivdual about his actions and the possible consequences

ChileRelleno-Rodriguez Bro#414
Hellfish#511,MuffBro#3532,AnvilBro#9, D24868

[flyingmonchichi 0]

I hate hearing about things like this.

It's really scary (and irresponsible) that he would do this - especially after you had specifically asked him not to. I hope I'm never unlucky enough to be in that situation (or jump with this guy) and I'm sad to see that one person can so thoughtlessly put the lives of others in danger.

Glad you all got out of it ok and hopefully this guy will have a wake up call - if not for himself then hopefully for everyone else around him.