Corruption, faulty cable blamed for death of Thai police parachutists

[DrTuner]

The cable in the photo looks heavy duty enough. Is there a saw or clippers hidden somewhere there ?

[DogNo1]

jaapfries: What's with the 8 jumps and half a chute? What jump school did you go to? Were you just being funny?

[rickirs]

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Putting the cable issue aside for now, why have they failed to deploy their reserve chute?

from someone who has few jumps under his belt, either they were dropped from to low, or

they have hesitated to long before they pulled the reserve cord, either way, theses issues

should be revisited urgently...

Like maybe there were no reserve chutes to open, saves money.

[rickirs]

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Best solution is to have police issue traffic tickets and stay out of planes with parachute or not. Leave the parachute drill to army personnel of the airborne command. Why does every police officer have to have a merit badge for jumping out of a plane? I am sure it is great fun and cool but whom pays for this drill and why?

These guys are not just plain police, let alone they are traffick police.

I live less than 1 km from that base called Palam 6, it is a base with 4.000 specially trained police that do not answer to the Army.

These guys do mostly clandestine special ops along or behind enemy borders catching smugglers, poachers etc. and are generally fearless and very tough m-f's.

They are under direct command of the King as well as of the PM.

I have seen them doing early morning jumps almost daily for 7 years now, mostly during the dry and hot seasons and always wondered when the first accident would happen as they do jump out of the small planes at very low altitude.

Well for now, they are under direct command of the Army since the PM is any active military General. Perhaps Gen. Prayuth will take responsibility for the cable malfunction. The "buck stops here" and all that chain of command stuff.

[billd766]

That is a serious price gap. I wonder if the figures are misquoted. I don't understand how such a large price difference could exist. Then again, two people are dead because of the inferiority of the cheaper products. It doesn't matter where they are made. When it comes to an activity like jumping out of an airplane, you don't let price be a major contributing factor in the decision making process for sourcing materials. Otherwise, catastrophic things like this can happen. That is blindingly obvious to virtually everyone with the slightest bit of common sense. RIP. May there be swift justice, if possible, for those involved in this tragedy.

The point is what was ordered, what was paid, and what slime bags pocketed the difference. When they find them they should be thrown out of a plane using the crap cable.

If you were to read the paper that we are not allowed to mention you will find that the correct cables were ordered but were not available at the time. The Thai Police Aviation Department then ordered the cheaper cable and had to modify them to do the job.

The new cables arrived in Febuary and March but were NOT retrofitted by the Thai Police Aviation Department and several of them snapped causing the death of two policemen.

[lexilis]

The Thai Police PARU units are indeed an elite force. They were formed in the early 1950s under a direct commission from His Majesty. They were trained by the legendary CIA special ops agent Bill Lair. From wikipedia on Bill Lair.: "In 1952 he was sent to Bangkok to work with the Thai Government in development of a counter-insurgency program. Lair developed, trained and led the Thai Parachute Reinforcement Units (PARU), a highly effective and elite force, which later served as training cadre for the CIA program in Laos, and which also later engaged in direct combat operations there." It was Lair who set up the PARU facility near Hua Hin. Below is a famous photo of Lair with HM (which I had to remove per forum rules - Google Bill Lair CIA for the image)

[Tywais]

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[MediaWatcher]

RKASA, on 25 Sept 2014 - 09:26, said:RKASA, on 25 Sept 2014 - 09:26, said:

Best solution is to have police issue traffic tickets and stay out of planes with parachute or not. Leave the parachute drill to army personnel of the airborne command. Why does every police officer have to have a merit badge for jumping out of a plane? I am sure it is great fun and cool but whom pays for this drill and why?

They should only do the same as teachers do, to get their parachute merit badge, jump from a parachute training tower.... instant parachutist, with certificate and badge to prove it.

Edited September 25, 2014 by MediaWatcher

[ABCer]

Best solution is to have police issue traffic tickets and stay out of planes with parachute or not. Leave the parachute drill to army personnel of the airborne command. Why does every police officer have to have a merit badge for jumping out of a plane? I am sure it is great fun and cool but whom pays for this drill and why?

These guys are not just plain police, let alone they are traffick police.

I live less than 1 km from that base called Palam 6, it is a base with 4.000 specially trained police that do not answer to the Army.

These guys do mostly clandestine special ops along or behind enemy borders catching smugglers, poachers etc. and are generally fearless and very tough m-f's.

They are under direct command of the King as well as of the PM.

I have seen them doing early morning jumps almost daily for 7 years now, mostly during the dry and hot seasons and always wondered when the first accident would happen as they do jump out of the small planes at very low altitude.

OK. This explains the jumps.

But what 4,000 specially trained ... supertuff guys jumping from very low altitudes ... doing in Pallam?

Unless this Pallam is in the South?

[luckyman]

Best solution is to have police issue traffic tickets and stay out of planes with parachute or not. Leave the parachute drill to army personnel of the airborne command. Why does every police officer have to have a merit badge for jumping out of a plane? I am sure it is great fun and cool but whom pays for this drill and why?

These guys are not just plain police, let alone they are traffick police.

I live less than 1 km from that base called Palam 6, it is a base with 4.000 specially trained police that do not answer to the Army.

These guys do mostly clandestine special ops along or behind enemy borders catching smugglers, poachers etc. and are generally fearless and very tough m-f's.

They are under direct command of the King as well as of the PM.

I have seen them doing early morning jumps almost daily for 7 years now, mostly during the dry and hot seasons and always wondered when the first accident would happen as they do jump out of the small planes at very low altitude.

OK. This explains the jumps.

But what 4,000 specially trained ... supertuff guys jumping from very low altitudes ... doing in Pallam?

Unless this Pallam is in the South?

Jeez, did you read the article at all ?

Their base is called Param 6, which is Thai for Rama 6, after the King.

This base is located on Petkasem Rd. in Cha'am, Petchburi, as per the article. Only 10 km South of Cha;am and 14 km North of Hua Hin, there is also a small palace on site in times of emergency, the King will hide there.

These guys have only one base and consist of only 4.000 agents that are all located in Cha'am, there are no other branches of Rama 6 in Thailand.

The base gained some notoriety when it was used to contain red shirt leaders arrested shortly after the 2010 Rachprasong protest.

[GertrudeL]

Flight of Gibbon? Seems the best way to experience the same ^^

[Malthus101]

And this is exactly why I would never skydive in Thailand or do any rock-climbing - anything that involves responsibility and safety equipment being used.

Hell no!

[MZurf]

And people wonder why I don't bungy jump in Thailand!

[Cereal]

Does anyone else see the irony of Thai police being killed due to corruption?

[h90]

That is a serious price gap. I wonder if the figures are misquoted. I don't understand how such a large price difference could exist. Then again, two people are dead because of the inferiority of the cheaper products. It doesn't matter where they are made. When it comes to an activity like jumping out of an airplane, you don't let price be a major contributing factor in the decision making process for sourcing materials. Otherwise, catastrophic things like this can happen. That is blindingly obvious to virtually everyone with the slightest bit of common sense. RIP. May there be swift justice, if possible, for those involved in this tragedy.

No it is not. I often see products were the price differences are way bigger.

Even for the same technical product, same brand, I have seen triple price in Thailand than in Germany. For a lathe chuck, Original 2000 Euro, other good brand 320 Euro a month ago (both ex Europe).

On seals I see often prices of 5 Euro, a comparable like 0.45 and a cheap Chinese 0.3.

I am sure aviation things are prices much higher than just a steel cable from Somchai.