That dad is a tool! I saw the story yesterday morning, and the family lives in Texas, and the minimum age for jumping in Texas is 18, so he specifically sought out a company that had a lower age limit.

Would I let my daughter do that at 16? No, I think it's one of those things that a kid can wait for. Not only that, I'm not sure I would want to watch any of my kids jump out of a plane, at any age.

I'm not sure what errors were made by the company or whether or not there equipment was faulty, but I'm sure there will be a price for the company to pay. Meanwhile, Dad feels like an idiot for allowing the daughter to make the jump, and he wants someone else to shoulder the responsibility for his poor decision making abilities. It's not the jump company's fault that Dad doesn't know how to say no to his kid.

Third paragraph, 2nd line "THEIR" not there...arghhh!

1. Guess rattlesnakes, riding accidents, and ranch/farm work used to take care of idiots like the Dad. Hope he's not in West Texas.

2. What are the odds that her accident would happen versus an accident of driving while by texting (her or someone else).

3. Drove to Ft. Benning(?) to watch my son graduate from Army jump school. Not sure which was worse - not knowing which plane he was in or knowing that was his group coming out of that plane.

So if they had refused to allow her to make the jump, he'd probalby have sued for some form of discrimination. This all sounds to me like an ambulance-chasing lawyer is behind it, and they have given the dad a script to read to try to prejudice potential jurors.

There are a few things I'm wondering about. Was it a tandem jump or solo? How many jumps had she made previously? What kind of training did she have?

I'm not for mandatory age limits. Some people are mature enough at 16 to handle all sorts of crises. Some of us are not mature at, oh, 36 or 46.

While I understand the point, I can't say that I agree. It's true that some people are more capable at 16 than some older people are, it would be very hard for a company like Pegasus Air Sports Center to make that evaluation. They have to draw the line somewhere, if only to protect themselves from people like Joe Wethington, who did consent to let his daugher jump, and who must have signed some kind of release form.

@Bob in Texas: "Drove to Ft. Benning(?) to watch my son graduate from Army jump school. Not sure which was worse - not knowing which plane he was in or knowing that was his group coming out of that plane."

A high school chum of mine told me a similar story. Her brother was graduating from jump school, and family members were gathered to watch the graduation jump. To their horror, the chutes of two troopers became ensnarled. "Don't worry," said the announcer, "these men know exactly what to do!" Sure enough, the troopers methodically disentangled themselves and reached earth safely. After graduation, my friend's parents got a chance to ask their son about the two troopers. "Oh yeah," the young soldier said. "That was me and Lenny!"

Old RPM Daddy - holy crap! That IS a funny story. If I were the parent I would have fainted. Yet, still been very proud!

To what others have said, this story sounds all too much like the dad wants to go after the school for money. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out he was prompted to say that by a lawyer to help set the stage for a lawsuit.

@CousinDave - it was a solo jump and her first. I got the impression from the interview I saw yesterday, that dad was an experienced jumper.

This man is a blight upon my beloved state...
I've let my son hang-glide (tandem) @ age 12 - 15; while it terrifies me, I trust this outfit (Cowboy Up). Now he wants to go through their flight school to be solo-certified, but I'm making him wait until age 16.

Cousin Dave says "This all sounds to me like an ambulance-chasing lawyer is behind it, and they have given the dad a script to read to try to prejudice potential jurors."

Then Charles says "I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out he was prompted to say that by a lawyer to help set the stage for a lawsuit."

Says I, how sad that this is what it's come to, that everything that goes wrong, even if it's just an accident, has to have some lawsuit attached to it. Sometimes it's just an accident! That said, I don't think the company should be a fault. It's the parents' fault for letting her do something so damn dangerous. Anybody looked into the dad's financial status? Because with what Cousin Dave and Charles say, it probably bears looking into.

Unless you are doing it as part of your job, you just never want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

I am not sure they have a hook to hang their lawsuit on here, unless the equipment was faulty.

Amy, Gaba (Gamma Aminobutyric Acid) works well for me.

It has also cut down on the background chatter in my mind, almost as much as a long run used to.

"...you just never want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane."

Amen.

"I find it very hard to believe that the rules and regulations in Oklahoma are that lax. I think there is a flaw there somewhere, and I don't think it's through the state of Oklahoma. I think it's the company. I'm not sure."

Lets filter that

My lawyer is looking for grounds to sue, but already told me state have sovereign immunity and cant be sued in cases like this

Lujlp: "My lawyer is looking for grounds to sue . . ."

Yep, that was the problem - they already had "ground." But, it came up too fast - splat!

As I understand it was a static line jump. I.e. she jumped and a cord attached to the plane opens the chute.

She could be ding the same thing for the mlitary two years later.

The dad is just looking for money.

(Copy/pasted from the Facebook share I found this from).

No, he's absolutely right. A person's first jump should NEVER - read never ever ever never ever never ever NEVER - be a solo jump. It should either be a static line (w/ a watcher nearby to pull silver should it come to that) or preferably a tandem jump.

The girl's age wasn't the problem - I've been jumping since I was 12. The problem was there was no safety measure taken place with a person who had never jumped before and thus was not safe to assume would be able to handle a mishap cleanly.

Further, why was this jump only 3,000 feet? That's very, very low for a 1st timer, only allowing for about 20 seconds of freefall.

So. Now you've got a 1st time jumper diving solo at a low altitude by which if there is a primary chute malfunction, she has at most 4-5 seconds to get her wits about her, remember the process for cutting away, and to deploy her reserve pack.

That's a recipe for disaster.

And if ALL THIS wasn't enough, there's still the underlying issue that the primary chute deployed, but didn't deploy correctly - implying that the chute wasn't packed properly by the dive company in the first place.

TL:DR: I would *absolutely* let my 16 year old daughter jump. Attached to me. At at least 5,000 feet. In a properly packed chute. None of which happened here.

I'm getting so tired of crappy parents. They get told they can't let a minor jump, they'll likely bitch and moan and demand the right to make decisions for their kid and "how dare you tell me how to do my job".

You let them make the decision, something happens, and suddenly they absolve themselves of all responsibility.

I weep for the future.

> Gamma Aminobutyric Acid) works well for me

Chianti has its charms.

The Japanese weren't kidding around when they came up with Sake.

> you just never want to jump out of a perfectly
> good airplane.

I skydove, once. In 1991.

BECAUSE I KNEW I WAS GOING TO WANT TO BE A DICK WHEN WRITING THIS BLOG COMMENT.

Seriously ready for personal, inchoate narratives about Niacinamide and Gaba. (Nevahoiduvum.)

GO!---

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So...someone thought that jumping out of a perfectly good airplane was a good idea?

Only way I'm jumping out of an airplane is if it is on fire. And even then, I'll double check to see if the fire suppression system can manage the issue.

So...someone thought that jumping out of a perfectly good airplane was a good idea?

Only way I'm jumping out of an airplane is if it is on fire. And even then, I'll double check to see if the fire suppression system can manage the issue.

Posted by: I R A Darth Aggie at January 30, 2014 6:21 AM

Agreed.

One little known fact about World War II in the Pacific. Bailing out was a last resort. The crew was almost always better off riding a damaged plane down to a crash landing then leaving it while it was still in the air.

Jumping was simply not a safer way to land.

The forgotten part of the Greek legend was that Daedalus later successfully sued Minos for causing the death of Icarus by not stopping him from building wax wings.

You won't see me skydiving. Hell, it takes a day of internal pep talks and liquid courage for me to even get ON a plane! I have to Really want to go somewhere to fly, and my poor husband gets to endure me clinging to him thru takeoff, landing, and any turbulence.
This would definitely be on the Over My Dead Body List for my kids until they got old enough to move out on their own.

>

Is it safe to assume that you're not a candidate for Elon Musk's one-wy trip to Mars? :-)

They give their daughter permission to do something. You'd think, of course, they know their daughter better than anyone else, what she is and isn't capable of.

Yet, despite giving their daughter permission to do something, it's somehow the business's fault that she was allowed to do it.

Douchebags, be grateful your daughter is alive and will still be able to walk. Don't abdicate your responsibility then sue someone because you shouldn't have.

I wonder:

If you appeared at an airport, to board a commercial flight, would the TSA confiscate your parachute?

"Nancy Koreen, director of sport promotion at the Fredericksburg, Va.-based U.S. Parachute Association, said its safety requirements allow someone who is 16 to make a dive with parental consent, though some drop zones set the age higher.

Robert Swainson, the owner and chief instructor at Pegasus Air Sports Center in Chickasha, defended the company Tuesday. He noted that the father went up with his daughter and was the first to jump.

Makenzie, from Joshua, Texas, was making a static-line jump, where a parachute is connected to a lanyard that's attached to the plane and opens automatically when a diver exits the plane.

Swainson said Wethington's parachute opened OK, but she began to spiral downward when the chute went up but not out in some kind of malfunction. Swainson said a parachute can develop such a turn for several reasons, but that Wethington and other divers were given instruction during a six-to-seven-hour training session beforehand on how to deal with such problems. He also said Makenzie had a radio hookup in her helmet through which someone gave her instructions.

"It was correctable, but corrective action didn't appear to have been taken," said Swainson, who has run the skydiving business for nearly 30 years.

Swainson said he did not jump out to help Wethington because there's no way he could have reached her and another jumper got cold feet and refused to make the jump. Swainson said it was protocol for him to remain with the frightened person because instructors don't know what that person will do.

"The most I could have done is screamed," he said."

@cbsnews

Swainson said Wethington's parachute opened OK, but she began to spiral downward when the chute went up but not out in some kind of malfunction. Swainson said a parachute can develop such a turn for several reasons, but that Wethington and other divers were given instruction during a six-to-seven-hour training session beforehand on how to deal with such problems. He also said Makenzie had a radio hookup in her helmet through which someone gave her instructions.

"It was correctable, but corrective action didn't appear to have been taken," said Swainson, who has run the skydiving business for nearly 30 years."

I wonder what the chances are of a bored 16 year old, possibly texting on her cell phone, catching even 20 percent of what she was,told during that 6-7 hour "training" session?

"So...someone thought that jumping out of a perfectly good airplane was a good idea?"

Depends on your definition of "perfectly good". My Dad had a Bellanca, and I could see jumping out of a perfectly good Piper to avoid throwing up from being in the thing.

Texting, huh? So nobody could impress this little girl that landing with a bang was completely possible?

Now there is an interesting thought. I wonder if the companies lawyers will think to subpoena the girls phone record to see what she whether or nit she was paying attention

Now there is an interesting thought. I wonder if the companies lawyers will think to subpoena the girls phone record to see what she whether or nit she was paying attention

Posted by: lujlp at February 1, 2014 10:50 AM

Assuming it gets to court, that would be a very smart idea. The liability waiver used by these skydiving companies has to be pretty good, or they would mostly be out of business by now.
I would guess, that the reason this company is located in Oklahoma is because the insurance laws, tort laws, and court system favor these inherently risky activities more then they favor the potential plaintiffs.

Seriously!?!?!?!?!

Dad needs to be castrated. Too much chlorine in the gene pool.