Disturbing footage shows Thai paratrooper’s chute get caught on plane and subsequent fatal plummet

November 6, 2013 Aviation Safety / Air Crashes
David Cenciotti

Beware, the following video is quite disturbing, at least from minute 03:50.

It shows the fatal incident occurred to a Thai paratrooper whose chute gets caught on plane while other military safely jump. The doomed soldier remains hooked to the plane for about 3 minutes, before straps fail and he falls into the ground without managing to open a reserve chute.

The plane can be seen turning (most probably returning to the homebase) at a lower speed, but it does not seem to climb to give the soldier enough clearance to open the emergency parachute (if any).

Few days ago a potentially tragic midair collision left 11 people (9 skydivers and 2 pilots) miraculously unhurt. In this case, the Thai paratrooper was not as lucky.

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About David Cenciotti
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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.

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5 Comments

  1. Why don’t they have hook knives and the training to cutaway and deploy the reserve?
    I’ve never seen or heard of a malfunction like this with static line deployment. Did he tumble through the risers?

  2. God love him.
    Can someone with some military parachute experience explain how this could happen.
    How can that deploy line not snap immediately with the forces on it ?
    Was this an equipment failure issue or was it a user setup/attachment issue ?
    I can’t see that he exits the aircraft any different from anybody else.
    (note: This might be a double post from me)

  4. The line didn’t snap. It was a deliberate cutaway by the jumpmaster (jumper himself was in position to deploy the reserve upon command).

    For reasons unknown, he was not able to deploy the reserve in time.

  5. Wow, this is really too bad. Military life can be dangerous and the guys know that but it still stings to see something like this.

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