[b]I couldn't freaking BELIEVE THIS![/b]

Someone at Camp Lejeune has been sabotaging a bunch of Marines' parachutes by cutting some critical lines in a manner to kill Force Recon Marines. [shock] Apparently, this is ANOTHER MARINE!!!

The guy[s?] who are responsible obviously know what they are doing.  Initial investigations have shown that the cutting of the critical straps/cords whatever, has been done very carefully and in a manner to perfectly avoid detection by the normal quality control checks.

This is absolutely fucking disgusting.  Fortunately no Marines were killed, but only by the Grace of God.

Here is the link:  [url]http://www.jdnews.com/Details.cfm?StoryID=7462[/url]



When they catch the perp[s], I would turn them over to the Recon boys...then I would court martial the leftovers.

[pissed]

You know in the old days a rigger was handed a chute at random and told to jump with it, is it still done like that, I thought that was a good quality control measure.

The Fifth Column has been mobilized.

They are lucky.

Way to go for the jumpmaster for calling the jump off so quickly .

The main chutes they use suck compared with the state of the art types available now and the reserves are even worse.You can come in very hard and very fast. It is a miracle no one was hurt.

Attempted murder is too good for the cocksucker who cut the lines.

The worst possible punishment on the face of the planet is to subject yourself to the behind the scenes judicial system of a United States Marine.

The formal charges are the LAST thing that guilty soul has to worry about.

~Hokieman out

Semper Fi

Any Marines out there care to share with us from what height you guys normally jump? I've been told many training jumps some Army units come in at 800 feet - you would have to have amazing reflexes to identify the problem and deploy the reserve in time.

Perhaps since they were doing heavy drops they were at a higher altitude?

Either way, I'm sure glad they made it to the ground OK. I hope they catch the bastard.

Adam "5 jump chump with no clue" White

That has happened the skydiving world a couple times. Most have been found before anyone jumped the shit.
A guy did jump a sabotaged rig in the US a few years ago. Main and reseverve were damaged and he was seriously hurt.No one has ever been caught for any of the incidents that I know of.
In Germany a guy tried to sabotage a girls rig in a case of unrequited love a few years back. Dont remember what happened to him.
Serious shit.

That's the truth!  That shit stick had better pray he gets picked up by NCIS and locked away in solitary before some Marine puts 2 and 2 together.

Most parachute jumps in the military are still conducted with some variant of the MC1-1 steerable parachute.  This is a round, static-line deployed parachute with moderate steerability by means of two toggle handles attached to lines that operate flaps in the main chute.  Panels removed from the rearward surface of the chute dump air from the rear to help maintain a forward drift. By pulling the toggles, other pannels on either side of these steering opening, open up to dump additional air and turn the parachute in that direction.  The system is reasonably safe for the purposes of training and combat parachute jumps, maintaining a descent rate of 17-22 feet per second depending upon jumper/gear weight, prevailing wind direction and speed.  It's roughly like jumping out of a second storey window.

Military parachute jumps are rarely covert affairs unless they are being performed by special operations troops on a covert or clandestine mission.  Thus there is a high likelihood of armed resistance being encountered on the drop zone or arriving shortly after the drop.  Thus it is imperative that jumpers get on the ground quickly, and that they spend as little time defenseless in the air as possible. Although it is technically illegal to fire on a soldier descending in a parachute, that particular rule of war is ignored pretty much by everyone.

So Rangers will jump onto a hot DZ from as little as 500 feet Above Ground Level (AGL) and will deploy without a reserve parachute since they will have almost zero time to recognize a malfunction and throw their reserve before impacting.

Army training jumps at the Basic Airborne Course are at around 1250 feet AGL.  At Airborne units they can be higher or lower depending upon training requirements and goals.

It takes about 4 seconds from vehicle exit to opening shock during a military static line jump. Descent under a properly deployed parachute takes about 30-40 seconds from 1250 feet AGL. Much of the descent is accomplished during the initial 4 seconds of parachute deployment.   In a low level AGL combat jump, the parachute just about has time to break the soldier's fall prior to landing. Injury rates are relatively high in those sorts of jumps.

The T-10 reserve parachute is not a fully functional parachute as compared to the Mc1-1 series.  It is a non-steerable, fully round chute with no directional venting.  It has short suspension lines, open very quickly, and has a faster rate of descent thanks to a smaller canopy size necessary to stuff it into the reserve bag. It is essentially a lifesaver parachute which should get you down alive, but the chance of injury is relatively high.

The modern, state of the art airfoil parachutes used by recreational skydivers and military freefall parachutists are wonders.  With glide ratios as high as 7 or 8 feet of forward glide to each 1 foot of descent, they can be used to jump at high altitude (as much as 30,000 feet) on one side of a border and fly 30 miles or more to the other side of the border for a covert insertion. They are also extraordinarily expensive compared to the Mc1-1 bravo, and are a wasted expense for the majority of military parachute jumps since the glide capability and precision steerability are not required for airfield assaults such as was conducted in Grenada and Panama, or the Ranger assaults in Afghanistan. Especially since many parachutes are lost, abandoned or destroyed in combat jumps.

I'd jump an MC1-1B again in a second BTW.  I've got absolute confidence in the system when properly maintained and packed.  I was injured in a jump with an MC1-1B parachute, but that wasn't the parachute's fault, it was mine.  Most parachute injuries are operator errors despite what we tell our buddies whilst lying in a hospital bed with our leg in traction. It's not the chute, or the wind or the ground, it id the operator for failing to judge the current conditions and effectively compensate by steering properly, slipping into the wind prior to landing and performing a proper parachute landing fall.

I guess not all Marines are happy about their existence or are hooah born again hard or whatever, eh?  

But I thought the parachute packers had to sign the little cards on the chutes they packed and agree to jump any chute they pack themselves.  Is that not true?  Maybe they're "hiring" inmates to pack chutes nowadays...

Excellent post, but I must disagree with you on one point.  Paratroopers are considered combatants even when they are in the air and as such may be legally targeted.  A pilot escaping an aircraft by parachute however, is considered a non-combatant and must be given the chance to surrender.

If it is a "Marine" that did it, then that scum bag lost his title the instant he did it.  Some kind words of advise for you trickshot, it is in your best interests to leave your off color remarks about Marines to yourself.  We will keep our own house in order, and don't need any outside input from outsiders on how to conduct our business.

A MC1-1B is what I jumped my first 18 jumps under.

Steerable is not the word I would use to describe the performance of a issuse rig ,It is more like you can turn around so you can face what you are going to hit.  

Remember feet and knees together.

Back to the thread topic

I think a lot of people could have access to the loft it is not uncommon to have riggers working on private projects late into the evening.

I hope they catch the Mther fkier . I am not optimistic if NIS is leading the investigation.

It's illegal to shoot at [i]noncombatants[/i].  Three battalions of airborne motherfuckers intent on erasing your existence are definitely [b]not[/b] noncombatants.  Perfectly legal.  However, aircrews who have departed a formerly operational aircraft are not considered combatants, and are not fair game.

Edited because Nimrod1193 beat me to it [;)]

I saw the story on CNN this AM. I am is shock that this happened. First off it wasn't just one or two. It was something like 10-15 that were messed with.
WHO THE F in their right mind would do that. What went on is this guy a terrorist working undercover or just one sick puppy. I pray they find him before something happens.
Maybe he knew they were being called up. He thought they were going to Afgan-Land or on a mission to capture a Terrorist. Could you imagine all those guys getting hurt on a mission. Let alone a training exercise.
Something is VERY Wrong here and needs to be plugged very fast.

It's the type of crime that deserves a firing squad, his body buried at sea without ceremony, never on American soil.

Burial at sea is an honorable Naval Tradition.  Feed that fucker to the hogs!

Head on a pike dammnit!!!!!!!!!!!!

visible deterrents, hmmm, maybe impalation in a public emporium?

I can't recall the exact details, but there was an enlisted rigger caught and convicted for sabatoging an officer's rig.

Just an idea,  do marines rig parachutes exclusively, or could it have been a civilian worker?
Maybe one with Middle East ties?

I remember a big case right when I joined the army.  Some scumbag melted the shroud lines of  parachutes with a lighter, trying to get back at a fellow soldier that owed him drug money.

Managed to kill a captain instead. One other guy made it to the ground and wasn't hurt. Upon inspecting the other parachutes in stock they found 29 others he'd "customized"

You and I may be talking about the same guy. If I remember right, it was at Ft Bragg.

Talbalos, I was speaking of a sport skydiving incident. The ironic thing about the case is someone borrowed the guy's gear. The guy who got hurt was not the intended target.
I know a girl in Deland who had her main riser's cut and the reserve ripcord cut. No one was ever caught. It was discovered in a routine pre-jump inspection.

Served 3 1/2 years in the 82nd Airborne. Managed to get my Jumpmaster wings before I ETS'd. I think I have around 30 jumps to my credit; mostly mass tac's. Never had a chute opening problem but witnessed several. I watched from about 800' as a guy in my squad had a malfunction, deployed his reserve at no more than 100', drilled straight into the ground and lived.
It was the kind of thing where you forget where you are while you're watching it and go "Holy Shit!!"

I'd heard about the riggers occasionally being picked to jump with the chutes they packed, but my faith in QC was somewhat diminished when I'd read the little log book attached to the pack and see entries like "Mickey Mouse" or "Fuk Yu Tu"... hey, for $50.00 more a month it was worth it.

Make the nimrod rigger jump every single chute he packed nonstop till there is a failure or he packs himself into the ground out of fear of the marines.

By the way, anyone know the difference between an "PLF" and an "PFL"?

Wow! Three people already jumped in to clarify the legal difference between a "paratrooper" and a "parachutist." Last year a thread went days before I had to jump in to clear that up (pun intended). Another indicator that the breadth of experience and knowledge on this board is growing exponentially.

I just wanted to add that I did three jumps in '95 with a T10C parachute. I never felt I hit the ground any harder than with the steerable MC1-1B ( I realize, of course, that landings are likely easier with riser going over your shoulder vs. out from your hips and when you have the time to properly assume the "landing attitude")

Heck, my worst landing was with the dang steerable chute. You are supposed to steer into the wind at ~100 ft. AGL to prepare for landing. Well, it just so happened that at that same altitude I enetered a different wind - it was suddenly at my back. The wind, plus the intentionally designed forward motion of the chute, caused me to hit the ground as if jumping from a rather fast moving truck.

Haven't jumped since the school and don't really have any plans to unless I suddenly have orders to Ft. Bragg.


Adam

Do we know for a fact that anybody other that a Marine has put hands on the chutes?

I can guess what the Marines would do to the guy(s)but it's safe out here in the civilian world either,if there is any way the guy is running around out here they better not put out a "APB" or have his mug up on the news as is customary today.
This guy would end up some place with a nice view of Jimmy Hoffa.[;)]

Anyone for profiling?

Or should they start looking for grannies to interrogate?

I am not a Marine but I am confident they would know how to deal with this individual.  I say turn him overr to them for 24 hours and let them solve the problem- unhindered.

This is way serious stuff - attempted murder, no more, no less.  Sure hope they catch the idiot.

HEY!!!  I didn't do it!  Nobody saw me do it; I wasn't even in the area!  I'VE GOT AN ALIBI DAMNIT!  [shock]

Find the perp(s) and make them jump with a chute with no risers or reserve.

Somebody's playing for the wrong team.

What he said!

Nimrod- oh man I'm sorry.  But I gotta tell ya your post gave me the best laugh of the day!!  Wonder if the neighbors heard me!!

Ok here's the difference:

PLF= parachute landing fall
PFL= poor fuckin' landing

Nimrod I'm still laughing!!