Article re Tom Piras
SKYDIVE
Fido-To: skydive
(The following is courtesy of the U.S.P.A., copyright 1992.)
Killed on December 13 in Panama was Tom Piras, former world 4-way champion
and co-organizer of several world freefall formation records. While conducting a 4-way training skydive as part of his "Skydive University" program, Piras' feet caught the leading edge of the accidentally deployed canopy of a jumper who had gone low on the formation.
Piras flipped and was stunned when his head struck the other jumper's knee.
He spun away out of control on his back. Several of the jumpers in the group attempted to rescue Piras, including the U.S. serviceman stationed in Panama
who was flying camera.
Piras apparently began to regain consciousness below 1000 feet, rolled over face to earth and pulled his reserve ripcord before striking the ground.According to the report, Piras was wearing a Cypres automatic activation device, but he had not turned it on prior to the skydive. Neither was he wearing a helmet.
Piras had logged over 13,000 jumps since 1974, accumulating more than 168 hours of freefall time. He won his first 4-way national championships with Desert Heat in 1980, and another with Air Bears in 1985, which went on to win the world championships for the U.S. that year.
Pioneering many flying and training techniques, Piras marked the trail for professional freefall formation coaches in both competition and recreation skydiving. He trained the French 4-way team Tag for it's first world championships in 1987 and continued to jump and coach national champions here and abroad until his death at 40.
At presstime, Piras' family planned to bury some of his ashes, and some were to scattered over the field at Skydive Deland, Florida, his home D.Z.
Ed.
--- DB 1.51/911243
--- eecp 1.45 LM2
* Origin: D.E.'s Skydiving Dungeon (1:110/68.7)
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SKYDIVE - via FidoNet node 1:233/13
Mark Smith
I didn't want to type in the whole story, but here are some of
the salient parts which might fill in the rest of the story for
you. It is duplicated w/o permission.
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...
The jump was videotaped by a freefall photographer, and investigators
used this footage to analyze the accident.
...
The four jumpers were seperated both horizontally after the exit, with
one of the Panamanians falling about 30 feet below Piras and a bit
behind him.
Piras was reported to be gesturing to the other two jumpers to fall
faster to join the third when that skydiver's main deployed.
The main deployed because its hand deploy pilot chute slipped out of
its punch.
Piras showed no signb of having seen the deploying canopy. It struck
his legs, pitching him forward and into the kneed of the deccelerating
jumper. The collision apparently knocked Piras unconscious. After a
few seconds of tumbling, he fell away on his back at high speed in a
head-down attitude.
The photographer chased Piras but was unable to dock on him. The
photographer opened his main between 1000 and 1500 feet.
Piras apparently regained consciousness at a very low altitude and
rolled over and pulled his reserve. The reserve pilot chute of his
Relative Workshop Vector was deployed, the reserve closing loop was
not broken, and most of the ripcord cable was out of the housing. A
broken loop would have indicated impact forces had opened the reserve
container.
Although premature deployment can result from a number of causes, the
one that lead to the accident was attributed to the combination of
not-quite-compaticle components.
The rig involved was an old North American Aerodynamics piggyback
equipped with a hand deploy pilot chute. Its owner had recently
installed a new zero-porosity pilot chute that fit very loosely in its
belly-mounted puch. The puch apparently was not tight enough to
securely hold the pilot chute.
Piaras' rig was equipped with an Airtec CYPRES automatic opener, and
news of the accident immediately raised questions about the device.
Pettena [Piras' friend from DeLand] reported Piras had not turned the
device on and had made a comment to that effect in the aircraft prior
to the jump.
Although Piras had been wearing the CYPRES for several months, he did
not routinely turn it on. Rob Laidlaw, his business partner, said
Piras neither trusted the reliability of automatic openers nor
believed that he would ever need one.
...
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