Death of Thai police cadet: Family suspect foul play

[webfact]

DEATH OF CADET
Family suspect foul play
Aritach Porn-asavayothin
The Nation



BANGKOK: -- THE PARENTS of a police cadet killed in an apparent parachuting accident say they suspect foul play in the incident.

Their son, Chayakorn Phutchaiyong, and another police cadet plunged to their deaths on Monday after a static line on their training aircraft snapped and failed to automatically open their parachutes.

Royal Police Cadet Academy commander Lt Gen Sakda Techakriangkrai said yesterday he had already set up a fact-finding committee.

"We will find out what happened and determine if anyone should be held responsible," he said.

According to Sakda, Chayakorn's parents were not convinced the static-line problems were an accident partly because their son had been engaged in a "serious conflict" with a senior.

The conflict was so serious that the school punished the senior with the maximum of penalty points - a punishment serious enough to force him to repeat a class.

"So, the parents wondered if someone would want to have their son killed in retaliation," Sakda added.

He said his school presented all its cadets and honour guards for the funerals of the two victims.

"We have tried to get them posthumous promotions too," Sakda said.

Meanwhile, police plan to interrogate the parachute instructor as they seek to |determine the cause of the accident.

-- The Nation 2014-04-02

[noitom]

Here's where the Thai ranking system plays out.

[Bluespunk]

"We will find out what happened and determine if anyone should be held responsible," he said."

How can there be any scenario where someone is not held responsible? Or is it that safety standards are not anyone's responsibility?

[petedk]

I must admit one of my first thoughts when I read about the news was "Why did so many parachutes fail to open?"

Was it bad training or was it foul play?

I didn't read anything the first time about the snapping of the cable.

Edited April 2, 2014 by petedk

[slapout]

There were more than the 2 deceased whose parachute did not open, the others involved in the exercise used their reserve chute succesfully. The failure of the static line was reported by another reporter/newspaper.

[tomyummer]

Wow. I didn't know that cadets in the police learn to parachute. In thought it was strictly military.

[sreiter]

What a horrible way to die! Apparently the parents were watching too. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. Stefan

[madmitch]

So what went wrong with his reserve chute? If that was not tampered with it should have saved him.

Unless he panicked, which would not surprise me, as jumping out of a plane is certainly one of the most terrifying things I've ever done........ just the once!

.

[chrisinth]

With a static line failure, the parachutist still has his reserve chute as backup. For the static line to be unable to pull on the D ring and deploy the primary chute, it must have been in a hell of a mess. This is definitely down to the jumpmaster as this is his responsibility, to inspect all static lines and ensure they are connected correctly to the jumper's D ring. If both the static line and the reserve fail, then there certainly is something to investigate.

Do the cadets pack their own chutes, or does that come later?

RIP to the unfortunate.

[roasty]

I packed my own chute after my first jump, but during the packing process, each stage is signed off by an instructor (or at least it was early 90s at the JSPC Netheravon).

[Procrastinator]

There is virtually no way for multiple static lines on a single jump run to fail, the odds would be enormous

That said, if the static line anchor point failed, with multiple jumpers having their static lines affixed to this point, then all those parachutes would fail to activate.

This is why a reserve chute is fitted, as the above, or other malfunctions, can and do happen.

Herein training takes over, and the most important aspect of jump training is in the deployment of the reserve parachute, under stressful situations.

In Australia, we would suspend a student from a training harness and have them simulate the correct body position and exit from a plane, followed by one or two instructors calling "malfunction, malfunction, malfunction" at which point we would start to violently pull the student from side to side, whilst continuing to scream at them, in order to disorient, confuse and stress the student, to evaluate his or her reaction "under stress" .

If they convinced the senior instructor that they could deploy their reserve parachute, under stress, then they were allowed to progress to the jump stage

That said, this in no way guarantees that a student will actually be able to deploy their reserve parachutes if required, and it has been known, for a skydiver to "go in" with a perfectly functioning reserve chute on their back (in any accident, this chute should immediately be secured for examination to determine if it has been tampered with!)

It is the instructors responsibility to ensure, through checks and training, that the main parachute deploys.

But in Australia, and many countries, this responsibility does not include the deployment of the reserve chute, beyond the training stage, as this chute is oftentimes packed by someone else, that person being a highly qualified parachute packer, who's qualification will exceed the instructors rating.

So, we have what should be highly experienced people packing the reserve chute, highly experienced people packing the main chute, highly experienced people training the student, and highly experienced people checking and double checking the operating system.. But there is more.

Most countries employ an automatic reserve opening mechanism, which is set to fire and deploy the reserve, if decent rate at a given altitude is too fast (as in if there is no main parachute slowing the parachutist)... It is the instructors responsibility to ensure that this is turned on or armed.

People have died as an oversight of this simple requirement.

When a parachutist actually jumps, there are a myriad of things in place to save his life, and deaths to first time students, because of this, are extremely rare, in fact, it is sad to say, that skydiving deaths are most commonly seen amongst experienced jumpers as they push the envelope.

So before speculating to far, these things need investigating.

What is the normal standard of training

What is the normal standard of aircraft inspection

Are all safety bulletins and advisories followed

Are automatic activation devises required by law

Are instructors suitably qualified

Are reserve chutes packed to a higher standard

These things, and more, should all be documented and provable.

There is a lot that can go wrong, but there are a lot of barriers in place to prevent these things from going wrong, which is what generally makes skydiving a safe sport

But accidents do happen, and every jumper is normally required to sign a document that demonstrates that they are aware that their death may result from the act of jumping from a perfectly good airplane.

As a skydiving professional, we train hard to avoid this situation, and always mourn for the family and friends of any unfortunate soles.. As i do in this case

If these deaths are a result of foul play, it is a most heinous deed, and i can think of no fairly equatable punishment that the law would permit, as hanging, drawing, eviscerating, casteration, burning and quartering are no longer permitted in a civilized world.

[tango]

All packers in the Canadian Forces, chosen at random, are each required to jump with a stick of jumpers.

[scorecard]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>he snappedvideo and numerluding line inc

I must admit one of my first thoughts when I read about the news was "Why did so many parachutes fail to open?"

Was it bad training or was it foul play?

I didn't read anything the first time about the snapping of the cable.

There was quite some detailed coverage of the snapped cable on Thai TV this morning, including close up video and numerous still photos.

[Artisi]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>he snappedvideo and numerluding line inc

I must admit one of my first thoughts when I read about the news was "Why did so many parachutes fail to open?"

Was it bad training or was it foul play?

I didn't read anything the first time about the snapping of the cable.

There was quite some detailed coverage of the snapped cable on Thai TV this morning, including close up video and numerous still photos.

Can they claim brake failure - seems to be the standard excuse for a disaster.

Edited April 2, 2014 by Artisi

[scorecard]

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"We will find out what happened and determine if anyone should be held responsible," he said."

How can there be any scenario where someone is not held responsible? Or is it that safety standards are not anyone's responsibility?

Agree. This must be investigated to identify exactly what went wrong and that shouldn't be all that difficult given that this activity follows very detailed procedures and numerous checks, and all of the equipment has been subject to many years of serious design and redesign according to very solid engineering principles.

If the cause cannot be identified then it means that there is quite some danger in parachuting in terms of lack of identification / understanding of what could / might go wrong.

If there was foul play then there should be appropriate punishment for the person(s) who sabotaged the cable (if that's proven to be true) and directly caused death, And there should be charges in relation to why the fault was not discovered in the detailed checking processes, again there should be punishment.

Another reason why the cause must be found is to change the procedures, change the equipment etc, to eliminate any danger.

We wait and see.

[tetleythedog]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

"We will find out what happened and determine if anyone should be held responsible," he said."

How can there be any scenario where someone is not held responsible? Or is it that safety standards are not anyone's responsibility?

You should be well aware that there are NO safety standards here. To expand on that there are no standards whatsoever ! RIP a waste of 2 young lives. The culprits (if it were malicious) will probably be bragging to their friends about it after 2 beers. Such is Thai society people !