During a safety training, a pilot wanted to deploy his parachute, which was packed in a Tube-Container integrated in a Skyline Phase harness. Although trying several times he did not succeed. Finally the paraglider got out of control. The pilot hit the water in a spiral dive and got heavily bruised by the impact.
The examination of the harness by the DHV and the analysis of the film footage of the accident revealed that the deployment of the parachute in such a harness with a Tube-Container is very hard or impossible if the release handle is pulled in a certain direction.
If the pull to get the inner container out of the Tube is in an angular direction upwards and to the front, as in picture 2, the velcro fastener of the outer container flap, loaded on shear now, prevents a complete opening of the outer container. The inner container with the parachute gets stuck in the velcroed flaps of the outer container; the deployment of the parachute is blocked.
Pulling out the inner container in any other direction is easy possible, pulling direction as in picture 1 is recommended.
Picture 1 Pulling out the inner container to the outside without problems
Picture 2 If the pull to get the inner container out of the Tube is in an angular direction upwards and to the front, the velcro fastener blocks the opening of the container flaps.
The manufacturer of the harnesses, Skyline Flight Gear GmbH, issued a safety note due to the accident.
On the harnesses Skyline Phase and Project Bi, the velcro which is responsible for
the blocking of the outer container (see picture 3) has to be made ineffective from the front corner to the beginning of the handle (ca 11cm). This is done by a velcro counterpart, which is put on or by removing the velcro.
The velcro counterpart and mounting guidelines can be purchased free of charge from:
Skyline Flight Gear GmbH
Wolfgang Genghammer
Weidach 1
D-83236 Übersee
Germany
Tel +49-8642-5979-0
Fax +49-8642-5979-29
www.skyline-flightgear.de
info@skyline-flightgear.de
Übersee, 26.08.03
Wolfgang Genghammer
Fa. Skyline Flight Gear GmbH
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