Aussie Man Falls To Death From Parasail On Phuket Beach

[balo]

8 hours ago, Chinphala said:

The video clearly shows the Thai guy getting right on top of him and fiddling around, he undoes the left side D ring and therefore we see Roger clearly unbalance to right hand side, held by only the right D ring. Thai guy then undoes the right D ring, Roger briefly held onto the tow line but let go and down he went.

 

Right , and why did he do that ? Murder? Or just a plain stupid operator ? 

 

 

 

[happyas]

17 hours ago, Tapster said:

@happyas

 

Actually, the poster with the helpful screenshots is correct. 

 

The victim does fall feet first. 

Yes, but was very obvious just looking at the video alone.

[Tapster]

@happyas

 

I sensed a dismissive air about your last post to me.

I was right.

I viewed the video on a very small screen and couldn't see that his legs were pointing downwards.

Is that OK?     Would you like to beat me up some more? 

Everything else in my post was correct. I hope we find out the details of what happened.

[Mises]

Tapster's knowledgeable observations about the harness are correct, it would not and did not fail.

 

In my earlier post I wrote: "The victim needed to pull his arms in and the sail straps would pass his shoulders and he would be correctly hanging from the link straps",

This is not correct, it may have worked just as he launched but as he rose in the air he would have slid downwards on the sail straps until the link straps tensioned, these would also now be under his armpits and so make this much more difficult. Maybe (yes pure speculation) the Thai operator unclipped the link strap from the D loop on the harness on one side so as to pass the link strap out from under his arm and maybe the victim seeing this did the same on the other side.

 

The fact remains that both the cleats to the D loops would have had to have been released for the victim to fall. One or both of them had to do this.

Edited July 15, 2017 by Mises
correction plus screenshot

[Tapster]

@Mises

 

I agree with you.

 

I have reviewed the footage on a large screen and I was wrong in my assertion that the poor guy swung upside down from the leg loops. It did look like that to me on the tiny screen I was using yesterday.

So, if he fell upright, he must have had his shoulder fasteners fail somehow. Maybe one was manually opened and the other failed with the full weight of the client? Who knows?

Confirmation of this would be if he fell with the harness on. If the chest fastener had failed and he'd fallen out of the harness, the latter would still be attached to the yolk of the parachute set-up.

 

On the video, as he's having the shoulder fastenings attached to the D-rings of the parachute rigging, the victim grasps the right and left webbing slings and holds them down on his chest. He stays like that and nobody notices (or checks!) that when the parachute launches both his hands will be janked up over his head,  because he's holding the straps the wrong way round. Have a look at the photo I've attached of people in the correct position.

 

In fact, looking at the video again, you can see that the victim keeps a death grip on the straps and the operator goes to unclip the right (?) fastener.

 

As the victim hangs with full body weight on one clip, it fails. 

 

In this situation, anyone who would consider releasing one of the shoulder fastenings is either a criminally negligent operator or a very silly, and unlucky client! Any problem to do with the rigging should have been managed, if not completely corrected, without touching the shoulder fastenings at all. The operator should have simply left him with his arms in a silly, but not dangerous position, but it seems he chose not to. 

 

What do you think?

 

[happyas]

2 hours ago, Tapster said:

@Mises

 

I agree with you.

 

I have reviewed the footage on a large screen and I was wrong in my assertion that the poor guy swung upside down from the leg loops. It did look like that to me on the tiny screen I was using yesterday.

So, if he fell upright, he must have had his shoulder fasteners fail somehow. Maybe one was manually opened and the other failed with the full weight of the client? Who knows?

Confirmation of this would be if he fell with the harness on. If the chest fastener had failed and he'd fallen out of the harness, the latter would still be attached to the yolk of the parachute set-up.

 

On the video, as he's having the shoulder fastenings attached to the D-rings of the parachute rigging, the victim grasps the right and left webbing slings and holds them down on his chest. He stays like that and nobody notices (or checks!) that when the parachute launches both his hands will be janked up over his head,  because he's holding the straps the wrong way round. Have a look at the photo I've attached of people in the correct position.

 

In fact, looking at the video again, you can see that the victim keeps a death grip on the straps and the operator goes to unclip the right (?) fastener.

 

As the victim hangs with full body weight on one clip, it fails. 

 

In this situation, anyone who would consider releasing one of the shoulder fastenings is either a criminally negligent operator or a very silly, and unlucky client! Any problem to do with the rigging should have been managed, if not completely corrected, without touching the shoulder fastenings at all. The operator should have simply left him with his arms in a silly, but not dangerous position, but it seems he chose not to. 

 

What do you think?

 

 Actually, you, Lamar  and an associate of mine are basically on the same track.

From #116 on the other thread, in part;

 

The real problem starts about 1;50 in when the belts that should go over the mans shoulders, for some reason,as the guy is holding the front harness thus preventing this correct placement happening and they are under his arms.

The helper noticeably looks at this initially, but does nothing and focus's on the towline starting to tighten up, pre liftoff.

As they start to ascend the other groundcrew notice this and start yelling, but is too late.

Now the full weight of this rather solid man is supported by these harness's under his arms and obviously in a bit of pain he tries to reposition them with the help of the crewman who has,as is normal in Thailand, now climbed up above the man.

It is hard to see who is doing what exactly but as the mans arms go up to allow the harness to its normal placement it appears that for whatever reason the talked of lower bum support either has failed or was not initially fitted correctly as is speculated.

Now, the only means of support ie the harness under his arms has been removed and gravity does its thing.

 

Two valids POI now at this stage;

I figure the man to be probably around 90 kilos, so was this weight sufficient to ensure that he just slipped through the whole harness system [which is outside his shirt ,possibly making it less friction] ? The whole rig, shirt and all just went over his shoulder and head ?

I believe this is very possible, myself , if not having any viable lower support as mentioned as a possibility.

 

The next point is indeed of great interest to me.;

Next at about 2;31 the crewman somehow has managed to grab both hands of the man.all the while sitting in his precarious position and is able to hold him for a couple of seconds, until inevitably gravity won the fight.

This is no easy feat if it was just a reaction to save the man from falling.

Maybe he screamed for help just before he fell and the crewman had time to make this move?

Unfortunately you cannot see if the harness/shirt did slip up and over as i believe, but there appears to be no trailing equipment in the fall.

 

 

Hopefully the truth will come out ,but from what i understand of procedures often in Thailand,sadly it may not.