Trooper’s death causes Army to suspend T-11 use
Last month, i wrote about SSG Jamal Clay who died during a parachute accident at Fort Bragg. the Stars & Stripes reports today that the Army has suspended use of the T-11 parachute as a result;
An internal Army memo says investigators found “potential packing, inspection, quality control and functionality problems” with the T-11 parachute system.
According to the memo, Secretary of the Army John McHugh ordered the suspension of the parachute’s use until a safety investigation is completed.
The Fayetteville Observer reports;
An inspection of 10 of the T-11 parachutes revealed “tangled pack assist loops, improper corner arm folds, improperly stowed bridle, twists in the top of the canopy and failed pull tests of the reserve parachutes,” according to the memo.
“The observations are significant and pervasive enough to indicate potential systemic shortfalls,” the memo says.
I remember the on-and-off-again phase the Army went through with the -1B, but that was mainly because of driver error – people getting entangled in each other’s parachutes because of the maneuverability of the parachute. This sounds like rigger training errors.
Category: Military issues
You mean the Army quit using the 1-B? I loved that chute, precisely because it was manuevrable. And they went back to the T-10(which is a pig to steer)?
This saddens me even more. 🙁
Apparently the T-11 isn’t steerable, either, so the maximum jump altitude is 800 ft. AGL, instead of the 1,250 ft. jumps which were normal for a -1B. My, how clever. When we’d jump in Vicenza, we frequently steered ourselves into the drop zone proper, and avoided landing on the runway, which is a lot harder than dirt. So no steering, slower canopy opening time (apparently with a matching T-11 reserve chute suffering all of the same problems), and lower jump altitudes precisely because the chutes are unsteerable, is better, how? Someone please ‘splain this to me.
Seems like a rigging issue.
I hope the max jump isn’t 850. It took almost 900 feet for my canopy to open after riser twists when I jumped the T-11 during jump school at Benning. At least with the crash-10, I can reasonably expect it to open on time.