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Lacey Fire District Three via AP
An army paratrooper tangled in a tree on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., on April 26, 2012. Lacey Fire District Three aided in the rescue of two paratroopers who were blown into trees during a training exercise.
Lacey Fire District Three via AP
Lacey Fire District Three's tall ladder being used to reach one of the trapped paratroopers.
KING 5 News reports — Two Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) paratroopers were back on solid ground Thursday evening after getting blown into trees during a training exercise.
Lacey Fire District Three was called to the scene in Thurston County, Wash., by the JBLM Fire Department to assist with the rescue.
Army beefs up leadership at troubled Lewis-McChord base
One paratrooper was safely pulled from a tree before the Lacey crews arrived. The second paratrooper was higher up in a tree and JBLM didn't have a ladder capable of reaching him. Lacey firefighters were able to get close enough with the ladder truck to rescue him.
Both paratroopers are okay.
Video: NBC’s Miguel Almaguer reports on the troubled past of Joint Base Lewis-McChord
Lacey Fire District Three via AP
One of the paratroopers is helped to the ground.
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Glad to see both members of our military are safe. While a bit of a hassle and slightly embrassing, these troops will have a good story to tell, and pictures to prove it!
Good to see both of them with their boots on the ground again.
This is why they call them "training exercises." Glad he was tangled real good and didn't come loose and fall.
I can hear the phone call now:
Dispatcher: "Your cat is stuck in a tree?"
Caller: "No, my Screaming Eagle."
It is good to see that both of these paratroopers made it back on the ground without injury. It was bad enough for the guy who had to be rescued by his fellow soldiers, but it must have been more than a little embarrassing for the one guy who had to be rescued by the fire department. I guess maybe these guys need a little more training. Something like this happening in a combat situation can easily become fatal. In combat, if they have enough time before the enemy gets them, they are trained to use their back-up chute to get out of the tree. They let the back-up chute fall to the ground, tie off the chords to the tree. They then release their harness and climb down the back-up chutes chords, hoping that they are not too high off the ground and that the chords are long enough to reach down to the ground or at least to a safe enough distance from the ground that they can jump without injury. After all, there certainly would not be a fire department around to come get you down.
Jumpers get caught up in trees all the time. Every jump has injuries. Usually the military FD would handle it but they needed the civilian ladder truck. This isn't an embarrassment.
It does happen regularly, during an airshow in Ohio many, many, MANY moons ago we had some jumpers get blown into the trees over some port-a-johns (can't find the photo at the moment).
Hurt their pride more than anything.
They were actually lucky, the people who landed in the LZ had numerous injuries (which is not the norm, the norm is maybe a slight sprain, on a mass attack with combat equipment you may see a concussion or one fracture).
On the Ohio jump the ground crew were reporting wind speeds which were, to put it nicely, complete and utter bull@!$%#. Basically someone decided the show must go on, that someone not being one of the people in the airplane.
What do these paratroopers do if this happens in a combat zone? Call the local fire department?
Apply pressure to the reserve parachute to prevent it from fully deploying and then allow it to fall towards the ground. Release yourself from your parachute harness and then carefully climb down the outside of the reserve chute.
We don't do it in training because it would be stupid for Soldiers to attempt to do it and risk a potentially lethal fall rather than just wait for a ladder.
Lol, but no! You get your A$$ out of that harness and get to the rally point ASAP!
Yeppers: "What are you still doing in that tree? Get the hell down here and fall in!"
In the real world, rope down to the ground, or at least get to a strong limb that will support you to reach the trunk and then climb or shinny down to the ground, but not worth the chance of serious injury or death during a training exercise
Thanks for the explanation Jake !
When I was a jumper, (about 50 years ago), the approved solution was to pull your reserve chute, allow it to drop to the ground, crawl out of your harness and climb down the reserve. That would usually work if you were no more than 30 feet above ground. I can't tell from the picture. Maybe that jumper was higher.
Looks like around a hundred feet, based on how far the aerial ladder is extended.
Well explained. kudos to my fellow jumpers
One of the safest swings ever I am sure!
I'm with you Vegains, there isn't going to be a Lacey Fire District 3 in Afganistan with a ladder to pull the men down when they screw up. Shouldn't have gotten so close to the trees to begin with. They should have realized that parachutes and trees don't mix. Glad to see the soldiers are OK, but they need to learn a lesson from this.
booty they really are kind of depending on a little thing called WIND when they are coming down..... :-)
There aren't any trees in Afganistan to worry about, maybe a mountain ledge?
This is one of the oldest phenomena concerning Paratroopers.
It's a training ex, you have no clue how many jumps the two soldiers had. This might have been their first and misjudged the wind speed. And they could get down, trained to get down, but pointless to make that high risk a procedure when the fire department is nearby, especially on a first jump where they might not be as well trained yet with coming down a tree.
Just saying.
It's a training ex, you have no clue how many jumps the two soldiers had. This might have been their first and misjudged the wind speed. And they could get down, trained to get down, but pointless to make that high risk a procedure when the fire department is nearby, especially on a first jump where they might not be as well trained yet with coming down a tree.
Just saying.
boot007,
If you've ever been to Washington, you would realize that there are a LOT of trees there - big Douglas Fir trees, sometimes 100' tall or more, and you can't always steer around them. They also have a tendency to fall down in windstorms, demolishing whatever is underneath them - houses, cars, whatever. World's biggest weeds.
Booty, it's quite obvious from your ignorant comment that you have never had the privilege of exiting a C-130 while in flight. Let me dumb it down to your level so you can understand it better. Most military parachutes are not very maneuverable. You pull risers or toggles to drift or turn. The problem arises when the winds are faster than your parachute. When that happens, no matter what you do, you will go where the wind blows you. The newest generation of parachutes the Army just fielded are even worse because they have a slower rate of descent that the older (more reliable) T-10 or MC1-1B models. More time in the air equals more time to drift around.
You came down even faster in the T-7.
You also need the aircraft to drop you in the right location. The paratrooper has no control over where the aircraft drops them.
And sometimes they can't drop you in the perfect location because the military situation dictates otherwise. In war paratroopers have been dropped into lakes and drowned, onto church steeples, into forests, and sometimes have been shot while descending.
Soldiers go where they are told to go and do the mission as best they can. Deploying with an airborne unit is not for the faint of heart.
I'm with Kurt. I've been on JBLM and it's a combined Army and Air Force Base with a LOT of trees on it of all sizes, including a large number of very tall ones. It would be quite easy to get caught, especially with the decent winds we've been having here the last couple days (along with the ever-present rain, although that's mostly been a weekday thing this last month).
"booty" has obviously never had any exposure to jumps or the military in general.
Looking at the chute and the pack tray that looks to have been an MC-6 which is moderately steerable, heavy winds will put you into the trees. The T-11 which is the new one just fielded is very slow to respond and I'm just not sold on it.
As to what you do if you land in the trees in a combat jump, you do what paratroopers have done ever since the 505th landed in Sicily--figure it out or die trying. Is it dangerous YES, is it for everyone NO, are we superhuman and do we live life above everyone else OH YEAH!
AATW!
T'aint no way ya get me ta jump from a perfectly good airplane. NO WAY!
Prepare to be kicked out of the perfectly good airplane then, that is basically what they do if you hesitate to jump. I'm hoping they will let me go to jump school
lol, Jason you're completely right.
A girl in front of me basically sat down on the ledge because she was so scared. I had to "hesitate" so I wouldn't jump over her but the jump master kicked me. So I ended up jumping over her after all.
Thank God there was no tow jumper.
But a couple of my buddies who were behind me in line managed to bust my ass all the way down about how I hesitated! haha
What was it we used to say? The only things that fall out of the sky are bird s#it and fools.
Very happy to see the boys safe and oh yeah by the way... Thank you to the firefighters!!!
And girl.
Yea, looking at the second picture, i'm pretty sure the one paratrooper is a woman. Or a very small man with a pony tail.
It might be due to the perspective the photo was taken, but isn't the jumper on the small side?? Kinda looks like there is a bit of HAIR on that soldier... Maybe the jumper is a SHE??
"Him" does not have a military spec haircut. Perhaps he is a she. Why the deception?
"He" is definitely a "She"
that's the good old under the helmet bun that the girls do. Definitely a female.
The "these people jump into dangerous situations because they are stupid," comments amuse me. Clearly you don't know what paratroopers do once they hit the ground. Hint - it's more dangerous than the kite ride.
A good example of how the U S Gov is dependent on local know-how.
Hard to believe a US Army paratrooper is unable to extricate himself!
They're not "unable", it is simply safer to use the ladder truck when you have a great height. How is this fact so hard for some of you to grasp?
sometimes ya just gotta let legs be legs and feel sorry for 'em.......
Went out of C 130, a guy from some where back in the line came falling past me with at least three lines over the canopy. He was trying real hard to get them cleared and waited too long to go to his reserve.
Still brings a smile to my face, he was standing on the ground yelling he won the race...while medics were running at him telling him to lay back down. Broken leg, arm, and some cracked ribs. He was very happy to be alive. No it was not funny watching him head for the ground like that, but seeing that he was alive was a relief to us all.
Crap happens. Glad the troopers are all right. Trees can kill you. But that which does not kill you can make for a great story latter.
These are military parachutes. They are not steerable in the sense of a sky diver’s parachute. Only minor corrections are possible. Most tree landings can be attributed to four scenarios: 1) improperly calculated release point (CARP- where the jumpers exit the aircraft in order to drift onto the drop zone (unlikely); 2) Pilot/navigator left the green light on past the end of the drop zone (unlikely); 3) the jumper exited the aircraft after the RED light was illuminated (common); 4) wind speed and direction changed or gusted after the Drop Zone Safety Officer (DZSO) verified safe conditions existed one minute before drop time (happens all the time!) Tree landings happen ALL THE TIME. They are rarely an indication of the “skill of the trooper” or “training level”. Keep your opinions to yourself, lest you reveal your ignorance.
82nd Airborne, Senior Jumpmaster, 54 staticline jumps, USPA-B License
JUMPERS, HIT IT!!!
H-MINUS!
H-MINUS Indeed!!
Was A/1/505 myself many years ago & remember when they put a T-54 out at the main road across the street from the 82D museum.
They will be looking at the actions of the Jumpmaster, DZSO & the pilot as a standard procedure just to make sure all were correct. Not saying they were wrong but it is the standard thing to do just to make sure just as the Navy has an inquiry when a ship goes aground. I was in a night jump way back when where the lead aircraft thought the wind was east to west where it was the opposite, he led the entire drop down the east side of the DZ & over 1/2 of the 6 C-130 loads went into the trees. It happens, get over it.
103 static line jumps, T-10 & MC1-1B. I'm 2d generation Paratrooper, my father used the T-7 & my son is presently 3rd gen.
Airborne All The Way and Then Some!
Thank God they are all safe, and I second it, thx to the fire fighters!
Some of you fella's describe what it was like doing a jump over the jungle in Vietnam, in the dark . . . That should curl a toe or two.
Hopefully wherever these paratroopers are sent will have a willing and able fire dept to help get them to the ground.......
If this happened during a combat jump, they'd use their back-up chutes to get down, as they are trained. That procedure is dangerous and would be stupid to try when there are other ways to get them down available.
You know for my tax $ i would think this should never happen.i have seen high end parashutes that ARE stearable.Our people in uniform should have the best...Hey they spend top dollar on everything else.. million dollar bombs.Yes ,they should have the best so this will never happen.We are sposed to be the best....RIGHT ! Paratroupers should be able to glide in like true heros not stuck in some tree....Give them what they need....Thanks Old Man.
Those steerable 'chutes are a good bit more expensive, require more training & have a Significantly higher malfunction rate if you are talking about the rectangular ones. Round chutes deploy far more smoothly than any other shape. To give you an idea of the problems, civilian sky diver reserve 'chutes have an altimeter that automatically deploy them at 2500 feet, paratroopers START their jumps at 1250 feet in the majority of cases. Military 'chutes are designed to reliably deploy as rapidly as possible in case something happens. A combat drop can be as low as 850 feet & emergencies can be lower than that. I was on one drop in the o-dark where on takeoff climb right outboard engine caught fire & we learned how well the emergency procedures worked, quite well. We later found out that we exited the aircraft at 550 feet, the majority of those fancy steerable chutes would barely have had time to fully open, IF they did open in time.