Parachute Sabotage

Marine Corps Times ^ | October 7, 2002 | Mark Brinkley

[g'nad]

Marine Corps Times
October 7, 2002
Pg. 8

Parachute Sabotage

Reserve equipment saves 3 Marines; lines were cut on more than 12 chutes

By C. Mark Brinkley, Times staff writer

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — More than a dozen Marine parachutes were sabotaged and rigged to fail, investigators believe, a plot that three Marines discovered as they were falling from the sky.

Marine investigators and agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service now are on a manhunt for the possible saboteur, who allegedly cut suspension lines on more than a dozen prepacked parachutes stored in II Marine Expeditionary Force warehouses. It appears the saboteur was intimately familiar with parachutes and the safety systems employed by Marine jumpers.

The tampering was discovered Sept. 21, after the three Marines’ parachutes failed during a routine afternoon training jump.

Marines from Air Delivery Platoon, Beach and Terminal Operations Company, 2nd Transportation Battalion, dropped cargo from the back of an Air Force C-17 jet into Drop Zone Pheasant. Then, on the plane’s second pass over the landing zone, five Marines jumped from the jet. Only two of them saw their main chutes open.

The other three — two officers and a noncommissioned officer, whose names are being withheld by investigators — were forced to use the reserve chutes at their waists to land safely.

Once the damage was discovered during post-jump examinations, II MEF Chief of Staff Col. Dewey Mauldin suspended jump operations and ordered a review of all prepacked chutes stored in II MEF warehouses. During that review, at least nine other chutes still packed and waiting on the shelves were found to have similar problems.

Lines were cut

The three Marines whose parachutes failed, two from 2nd Transportation Support Battalion and one from 2nd Marine Air Wing, suffered minor injuries, but were back at work Sept. 26, officials said.

Jump operations resumed after the prepacked chutes were checked, Marine officials said Sept. 27.

The Corps did not release any information about the incident until queried by Marine Corps Times on Sept. 25.

Marine Corps officials and agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service are investigating. Most details remain under wraps.

"Suffice it to say, this is a deadly serious issue," said Col. Keith Oliver, a II MEF spokesman.

After the jump, examination of the three faulty chutes revealed that suspension lines had been tampered with, one Marine official said. Another Marine official said the lines appeared to have been cut or sliced.

How those damaged chutes passed the inspection of Marine jumpers and leaders is not clear. But a veteran parachutist said prejump safety checks won’t necessarily catch sabotage if the culprit knew what he was doing.

"You could cut a dozen different things in a dozen different places that wouldn’t get spotted on a Jumpmaster Primary Inspection," said the veteran parachutist, a former reconnaissance Marine. "But I don’t know why anyone would want to."

Prejump inspections are routinely conducted after the chutes have been distributed randomly to jumpers.

Each jumper also is inspected twice before the jump by two certified jumpmasters to ensure the "serviceability and proper fit" of the parachute, said Gunnery Sgt. Vic Ziliani, staff noncommissioned officer in charge of the 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company "paraloft," the building where that unit’s parachutes are packed and stored.

But all those inspections ensure is that the parachute is properly attached to the Marine — that no straps are twisted and no buckles are askew.

The chute itself is checked as it is packed, which can be up to six months before a jump.

How chutes are packed

Most Marines who jump from airplanes are not qualified to pack parachutes, so the amount of trust they place in their equipment and in the riggers who prepare it is enormous. To many in the jump community, rigging a parachute to fail constitutes the most serious breach of that faith.

Packing parachutes is a delicate business, and the Corps mandates a series of checks and balances to ensure safety.

Lejeune has three paralofts, so named because of the towerlike room in which parachute riggers can suspend chutes from a 50-foot ceiling to dry the canopy or untangle suspension lines.

A fourth paraloft is nearby at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C., where Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 14’s parachute riggers pack chutes for cargo drops and ejection seats. Though the riggers are qualified to pack personal chutes, air station officials said they typically do not store personal chutes there. The paraloft at MCAS Beaufort, S.C., is used solely for ejection-seat chutes and other safety devices.

In the paraloft, riggers and inspectors treat the packing of chutes as an almost surgical process. The riggers themselves are jump qualified and may be asked at any time to use one of their own chutes.

"When they’re passing out chutes, you could get any chute in here," Ziliani said. "You want to make sure they’re all packed the same."

After each use, chutes are carefully checked for rips and tears. Once deemed rip-free, chutes are stretched out on 50-foot tables, and a rigger begins the painstaking process of folding the chute along its vertical axis, string by string. At certain specific stages in this process, the rigger calls for his supervising inspector to review the completed work before he moves to the next step.

Once folded vertically like a napkin, the chute then is folded from top to bottom like a sleeping bag. Lines are carefully woven into the pack’s internal loops to prevent tangling. Inspectors are NCOs with at least two years of rigging experience. They carefully monitor every stage of packing, double-checking the rigger’s weaving before approving his work.

Then, once packing is completed, the rigger and inspector sign and date a card approving the rigging and insert that card into a pouch attached to the pack before the chute is stored in the paraloft.

If the chute is not used within 182 days — or 365 days for reserve chutes — it must be opened and repacked in the same manner. The only exception: chutes can remain ready for use past six month during Marine Expeditionary Unit deployments.

Even so, repacking is rare, Ziliani said. "They don’t sit on the shelves very long. We jump most of our chutes around here. The only chutes that ever make repack cycles here are reserves."

Ziliani demonstrated the techniques Sept. 26 for Marine Corps Times, unpacking a chute that was packed Aug. 21.

Paralofts are kept locked and access is tightly controlled. Not even the unit’s duty officer of the day has a key to the paraloft, Ziliani said.

The former recon Marine said any jumper could intentionally damage a chute to cause a failure.

"I’m not a rigger," he said, "but I can think of five or six things you could do to cause a chute to fail and no one know it."

Marine officials would not speculate on likely suspects.

"These are things that the investigation will determine," Oliver said. "Nothing is being ruled in or ruled out."

Klain W. Garriga, special agent in charge of NCIS operations at Camp Lejeune, said Sept. 27 that no one had been arrested, adding that the investigation is open and active, and it would be inappropriate to comment until it is completed.

Restoring faith

Most Marine parachutists go an entire career without opening a reserve chute. But every jumper trains for the possibility of an accidental failure.

During a static-line jump like the mission on Sept. 21 — the most common in the Corps, in which a line attached to the pack automatically opens the parachute as the jumper leaps from the aircraft — the Marine waits six seconds for the chute to open. If it doesn’t, he looks up at the chute to determine the type of failure.

In what is known as a partial malfunction, the jumper has some lift from his main chute; a total malfunction results in an uncontrolled fall. The jumper opens his reserve chute differently, depending on the type of malfunction and on whether the jump is free-fall or static line.

The seconds that it takes to determine the type of failure can mean life and death for the jumper. Fortunately for the three Marines, they were ready when their chutes failed.

Thankful tragedy was averted, Marine officials here, including Maj. Gen. Pete Osman, II MEF commander, are determined to restore their Marines’ faith in the system, Oliver said.

"The training works," he said. "That said, the leadership here is committed to leaving no stone unturned in conducting a thorough investigation. Maj. Gen. Osman regards his Marines and sailors as a very precious national asset — and they deserve no less. We will find out exactly how this happened."

C. Mark Brinkley is the Jacksonville, N.C., bureau chief for Marine Corps Times.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I understand that military jumping is a different situation, but if I were jumping for "pleasure" I would definitely want to pack my own parachute.

[PatrioticAmerican]

I'd say at 500 there is no reserve space.

[.38sw]

Yes, I definately preferred to pack my own, and I was always a little wary of my reserve pack. Only had to use it once, and it worked like a charm. And yes, I derived a great deal of "pleasure" from sport jumping. And to respond to a post just below yours, 500 feet doesn't give much room for a reserve.

[FreedomPoster]

Index for forwarding later.

[Consort]

Maybe this explains other military "accidents" such as helicopters falling out of the sky, etc.

[eno_]

The most likely case of the Islamists targeting our military was the Arrow Air crash in Gander. Odds are there are other cases, too. This is a war on a broad front. Unless we secure our borders to the best of our ability, and take a hard look at every single Moslem in the U.S., we are asking to get hit.

[Cvengr]

At 500, there's a little, but you have to keep alert and jump for 'soft' soil. ;^)