{"id":62564,"date":"2015-10-31T10:30:40","date_gmt":"2015-10-31T14:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=62564"},"modified":"2015-10-31T08:22:41","modified_gmt":"2015-10-31T12:22:41","slug":"parachute-accident-roi-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=62564","title":{"rendered":"Parachute Accident ROI Released"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 16 April 2015, PVT Joshua Daniel Phillips traveled to the JRTC at Fort Polk, LA. Along with about 2,000 others from the 82nd Airborne Division, he participated in a night mass-tactical jump.<\/p>\n

PVT Phillips didn’t make it. His parachute was damaged during the jump; he did not deploy his reserve. He died on impact.<\/p>\n

The Army Times has an article detailing the findings of the official Report of Investigation<\/em><\/a> concerning the incident. It appears to reveal errors by the personnel running the jump, as well as some judgement regarding the jump on the part of senior leadership that might be second-guessed.<\/p>\n

But in the main, absent cancelling the jump entirely my take is that this unfortunate incident appears to be something that was not reasonably foreseeable, and beyond reasonable control. Another jumper became towed. That jumper’s rucksack came loose, and struck Phillips’ parachute as Phillips exited, severely damaging it (and possibly knocking Phillips unconscious). It was Phillips’ first night jump; either inexperience or being knocked out caused Phillips not to deploy his reserve. Hell, even an experienced jumper might conceivably have missed the fact that they had a badly damaged parachute during a particularly dark night jump. And if you’ve been knocked unconscious, well, . . . .<\/p>\n

The Army has instituted some new control measures, intended to ensure jumpers get more experience before making their first night mass tactical jump. Even so, I’m not sure those new control measures would have made much difference here. Sometimes, reality bites – hard – and things simply go badly wrong in a way nobody foresaw. And even experienced jumpers sometimes make mistakes. <\/p>\n

It’s sad that a fine young man died. But there’s a good reason that being on jump status qualifies an individual for hazardous duty pay. It’s inherently dangerous. While the dangers involved can be reduced, they can’t be completely removed.<\/p>\n

Rest in peace, PVT Phillips. Rest in peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 16 April 2015, PVT Joshua Daniel Phillips traveled to the JRTC at Fort Polk, LA. … Parachute Accident ROI Released<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}