20.20 Transcript ...

[Michael J. Tobler]

Leap of Faith

Skydivers Beware - Is Your Parachute Safe?

Dec. 4, 1997

BARBARA WALTERS Picture, if you can, jumping out of
a plane and free falling at 120 miles an houróthe wind in your
face, your heart in your throat. The only thing that separates
you from death is that parachute on your back. Well, people
who skydive say they can never forget the thrill. I'll bet. And
statistics show that skydiving is really pretty safe. But TOM
JARRIEL tells us that when your life is in someone else's
hands, you better know something about them.


TOM JARRIEL, ABC NEWS (VO) Why is this mass
of humanity stampeding out of a perfectly good aircraft?
Defying death at 13,000 feet while depending on a flimsy
piece of nylon and a few strings to get you down has a way of
bonding participants instantly. Two hundred ninetyóseven of
them joined in this spectacle out to set a world record, a
snapshot of what's become the skydiving craze of the '90s.
Advocates are quick to point out how safe the sport is. Chris
Needles (ph), US Parachute Association director.

CHRIS NEEDLES, US PARACHUTE
ASSOCIATION For the student jumper, there's very little
he can do to either save himself or hurt himself because
everything is controlled and largely done for him.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) If everything goes right. Six years
ago in Utah, college freshman Paul Robertson trained to make
his first free fall, and his crisis was caught on video made by
another jumper. Robertson exited the plane with his
instructors, and his main parachute opened safely but didn't
hold. The canopy suddenly deflated. Without the main chute
cut free, his emergency backup suddenly deployed. The two
chutes tangled, and he spiraled to his death. With a history of
tragedies like that, sport jumping enthusiasts were happy to
see none other than former president George Bush show up
wanting to jump.

GEORGE BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT Up,
down.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) Bush, at age 72, fulfilled a
lifeólong wish and made a so - called ìaccelerated free fall.î
Chris Needles was right up there in the sky with Bush, making
sure the exópresident safely landed.


CHRIS NEEDLES At last, skydiving earned a little bit of
respect.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) The sport has become less
dangerous in the last 10 years, as the number of jumps has
tripled to three million annually. According to the USPA, an
average of 30 skydivers are killed a year, more than half of
them seasoned veterans.


JUMP MASTER Hard right turn.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) Of firstótime jumpers, rates
have actually declined over the past decadeófrom 30
percent to 17 percent of the fatalities.


JUMP MASTER Are you ready?


SKYDIVER Ready.


JUMP MASTER Let's jump.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) It's a huge business. A quarter of
a million Americans do try it every year. (Screaming)


TOM JARRIEL (VO) To reduce the odds of injury or
death, today many beginners make their first skydive tethered
to a trained jump master, sharing one large canopy.
(Screaming) They're called tandem jumps and provide the
same excitement but with less risk.


SKYDIVER I can't believe I'm doing this.


JUMP MASTER You're doing it.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) A typical jump might cost $200.
Good money for the 300 US skydiving centers, called drop
zones, around the country at small airports.


SKYDIVERS Whooóhoo!


TOM JARRIEL (VO) How risky is it? Well, at drop
zones like Blue Sky Ranch in upstate New York, beginners
are warned of the danger of injury, even death.

BLUE SKY RANCH EMPLOYEE First thing we'd like
you to do is to sign your life away. Cross your Ts and dot
your Is.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) The pages of legal documents
beginners must sign are to protect drop zone operators in the
event of accidents.

MIKE KANSZIK (PH), JUMP MASTER It has a
reserve on top, and the main on the bottom.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) In truth, students' survival
depends on the instructors, like jump master Mike Kanszik,
and the condition of the gear they're issued. The sport
regulates itself, setting its own safety rules. (on camera) You
know you are not coming back down on this plane.


SKYDIVER No, I know that.


TOM JARRIEL You are not going to change your
mind?


SKYDIVER No.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) The US Parachute Association
tries to enforce basic safety rules which the drop zones are
supposed to follow. Effective enforcement is the real problem.


CHRIS NEEDLES Well, we have no regulatory power
to shut anybody down.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) The Federal Aviation
Administration, the FAA, has little control over skydivers. The
people who pack emergency parachutes, though, are licensed
by the FAA. Joe D'Afflisio is a master parachute rigger at
Blue Sky Ranch in New York.

JOE D'AFFLISIO, MASTER PARACHUTE
RIGGER It's very simple. This is the last piece of material
between that person and eternity.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) So why, with FAA oversight on
packing chutes at a jump facility approved by the Parachute
Association, did 13 jumpers die over a 22 - year period?
There are drop zones, it appears, where some operators cut
corners when it comes to safety. (on camera) The skydiving
center which operated here for 20 years at the Sheridan
Airport in Oregon was one such case in point. Ted Mayfield,
who ran it, had a criminal record and ignored repeated
citations from the FAA. It seemed no one could stop him
from cashing in on the booming business of sport parachuting.
(VO) These videos were taken when Mayfield ran the center
four years ago. He was a USPA member and an
FAAócertified parachute packer. But Mayfield had been
barred from aviation for flying planes without a pilot's license
in 1988. Chuck Schaffer, an exóparatrooper, didn't know
Mayfield's history when he rented skydiving gear from him
five years later. His brother Paul says Chuck was getting back
into the sport. (on camera) What was there about parachuting
that he liked especially?

PAUL SCHAFFER, CHUCK'S BROTHER He used
to call it the adrenaline rush he would get. Parachuting gave
him the ultimate feeling of freedom.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) Chuck Schaffer plunged to his
death at Mayfield's drop zone that September. Neither of his
two parachutes opened.


CHRIS NEEDLES If the chute does not open, assuming
he tried to deploy it somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000
feet, he has about 10 to 15 seconds before he hits the ground.
And he's going at a speed of 125 miles an hour. So if he has
no canopy out at all, there's no chance of surviving a fall.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) The sheriff's accident
investigation was led by Sergeant Jim Carelle (ph), who says
skydiving deaths are among the most gruesome.

SGT JIM CARELLE, SHERIFF'S OFFICE A body
can't take that kind of impact without just breaking and
shattering bones all over the place and a lot of internal injuries.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) The family became furious when
they learned the parachute Mayfield rented Schaffer was
defective, in direct violation of 20 FAA safety regulations. (on
camera) What was the single most devastating discovery
made during the investigation?


PAUL SCHAFFER For me, it was that the device that
activated his reserve chute had been stamped ìfailedî and had
been sold to the Sheridan jump center for parts, and that they
put it into a parachute and sent somebody up into the sky to
jump out of an airplane with it.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) With growing evidence of
criminal wrongdoing, the detective raided Mayfield's
skydiving center and seized all his parachute gear. FAA
inspectors examined and tested much of the equipment and
found some of the jump gear to be worn, dangerous and
defective.


JIM CARELLE One individual that worked for Mr
Mayfield for a whileóthat he was paid and compensated in
beer.


TOM JARRIEL (on camera) Beer?


JIM CARELLE Beer.


TOM JARRIEL Packing chutes.


JIM CARELLE Packing chutes.


TOM JARRIEL And paid in beer.


JIM CARELLE And paid in beer.


TOM JARRIEL (on camera) Ted Mayfield was angered
but unfazed by the seizure of all of his parachute equipment.
Just one day after his skydiving business was raided by police
in 1994, he was back in business with borrowed gear. He
allowed a man equipped with what authorities would later
describe as an improperly modified parachute to make his first
jump out of a plane here. That man was 85óyearóold Lee
Perry, Sr. (VO) Lee Perry was a born adventurer, who, in his
80s, bought a motorcycle, went up in a glider, took up scuba
diving and decided to try parachuting. Unaware of the
sheriff's raid the day before, Perry took off from the Sheridan
airport on February 12, 1994. Outfitted in a parachute
Mayfield had borrowed, Perry was to make a static line jump.
The parachute was supposed to open automatically, like this,
when a jumper exits the plane. But neither of Perry's
parachutes opened. His body was recovered next to a trailer
home.

RICHARD PERRY, LEE PERRY'S SON You just
can't imagine what it does to you to find out that it was really
negligence and unnecessary, and you had been lied to.


TOM JARRIEL (on camera) We're looking for Mr
Mayfield.

TED MAYFIELD, PARACHUTE RIGGER Yeah,
I'm he.


TOM JARRIEL Oh, yeah. The man in the flesh. Tom
Jarriel. I'm with ABC News.


TED MAYFIELD Yes.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) We found Mayfield at the same
airport drop zone where 13 skydivers, including Chuck
Schaffer and Lee Perry, had died. (on camera) The
allegations against you by these people is that you gave them
poor training and you had poor equipment. What happened?


TED MAYFIELD Well, the main malfunctioned. It came
up underneath his arm, and he never bothered pulling the
reserve. He never made any attempt to pull the reserve or the
emergency parachute.


RICHARD PERRY That was a lie to cover up what
really happened, which was the static line, which pulls it out
automatically for him, was improperly rigged and failed.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) Several of those tumbling to their
deaths were lost because their reserve chutes, those required
by the FAA to be packed by a licensed rigger, didn't work.
And Mayfield, the FAA reported, in some cases was the
certified rigger. Mayfield bitterly fired back, accusing the FAA
inspector of knowing nothing about packing sport parachutes.


TED MAYFIELD That man could not pack that
parachute. Did not know how.


TOM JARRIEL (on camera) So you feel you knew
more about parachutes and packing them than the inspector?


TED MAYFIELD Yes, by far.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) Chuck Schaffer's parachute,
provided by Mayfield, was equipped with an automatic
device that was supposed to open the second safety chute at
800 feet. (on camera) Did you pack that chute?


TED MAYFIELD Yes, I did.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) But Schaffer's automatic opener
failed, and the FAA found that Mayfield had been warned not
to use it. (on camera) The question, though, is the automatic
opener. The authorities say it said something to the effect ìnot
operational, for parts only.î


TED MAYFIELD Yeah.


TOM JARRIEL Meaning it was junk.


TED MAYFIELD It may be a couple of hundred feet
high or low.


TOM JARRIEL A couple of hundred feet?


TED MAYFIELD High or low. OK. I can live with a
couple of hundred feet high or low.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) While Mayfield could live with it,
Chuck Schaffer didn't.


PAUL SCHAFFER I wanted to take Ted Mayfield up in
a plane and put the chute that he had sent my brother up with
him and give him a kick out of the plane. Let him take the
same chances he gave my brother.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) Ted Mayfield pleaded guilty to
criminal negligence in the two skydiving deaths and served 10
months in prison.


TED MAYFIELD I'm the victim of the heavyóhanded
work of the Federal Aviation Administration. That's what I'm
a victim of.


TOM JARRIEL (on camera) How did he defy your
authority so long and so belligerently?

PEGGY GILLIGAN (PH), FAA There are some people
who just don't follow the rules. And Mr Mayfield is one of
those people.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) Peggy Gilligan heads the FAA
office that spent 20 years filing complaints against Mayfield
before his skydiving operation finally shut down.


PEGGY GILLIGAN We revoked his certificates. We
took him to court. We had fines imposed. We ultimately had
him taken to jail. And with all of those actions, Mr Mayfield
refuses to follow the rules.


TOM JARRIEL (on camera) So you want to get back
into aviation?


TED MAYFIELD Oh, yes, yeah.


TOM JARRIEL If you can.


TED MAYFIELD Once you're in aviation, any part of it,
it's really tough to get out, yeah. It really is. It's in your blood.


TOM JARRIEL He makes you look very ineffective.


PEGGY GILLIGAN We continue to monitor Mr
Mayfield. He is currently on probation and if, in fact, we see
any activities that he is not permitted to be involved in, we will
be back in court.


TOM JARRIEL (VO) Most firstótime jumpers take
the leap only once, then quit. But about 33,000 others are
eventually hooked, and some go on to perform remarkable
aerial feats. Skydiving has become a seductive sport, where
those who are in the greatest danger are the experienced
jumpers who, like test pilots, keep pushing the envelope to the
outer limits.


HUGH DOWNS Great story.


BARBARA WALTERS I think they are crazy.

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