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Jonathan Bowlin

Jonathan Bowlin

Date: May 9, 1993
Nationality: American
Object Type: Earth
Location: Little Colorado River Gorge, United States
COD: Canopy entanglement
Clothes / Suit: Normal Clothes
Parachute: TBD
Age: 45
Experience: Experienced
Time of day: TBD


Description:

Jonathan entangled with another jumper's canopy after a premature opening during a 2-way. It's reported his new ZP pilot chute slid from its pouch. This is the first time Jonathan used the setup and the report indicated the pouch may have been too big for the pilot chute.
Updated 11th Feb 2023,

Description:
It happened on mother's day, 1993.

We were jumping a site I found in the mid-80's, an overhanging, 1700' wall, that required a helicopter to access - it was on a true pinnacle in a bend of the Little Colorado, just before it dumps into the Colorado. We made many, many trips there.
Jon had just gotten re-married, and came out after a commercial TV shoot, as I had an extra day with guides, permits, and helicopter, that I couldn't get refunded, so I called a lot of friends who came out.
Jon had a brand-new Vision Systems rig, single canopy system. It had a BOC on it, that Jon had never used that style before. He had a 38" PC with an 8' bridle as supplied with the rig.


Jon also had, brand new, pink PD 230, never jumped unmodified canopy. I am/was a rigger who built & modified gear, and we discussed doing the typical mods for that timeframe on it - those being moving the inner steering lines in a half cell, a deep brake setting ( or 2 ), a tail pouch with locking stow, and releasable toggle keepers ( some folks wanted that for slider down jumps), among other things.
However, it was brand new, he just got it like a few days before; we discussed if it was Ok to use on this huge wall, without mods, and as one could get terminal, and track, we decided it was OK to jump that day.
Plan was myself taking a 6 sec delay, Jon at least an 8. As we did pin checks, Jon pulled a small amount of fabric out of the pouch, to have plenty to grab on to, and we exited.
The accident jump was video filmed from the ground, and still photos from the top.
Upon my deploying, Jons PC, unbeknownst to him grabbed enough air to accidentally deploy, he was in a dead track, it opened 90 degrees to the right, violently surged, as all skydive canopies do, and ran into me. A cell wrapped over my head, and I was blind, and choking. I was wrapped completely,


My canopy was mostly open; and Jon was hanging beneath me, swinging back & forth (seen on video). the canopy slowed turned, eventually ran into the wall, whereupon it split, nose to tail in the centre, and we started a violent "helicoptering", striking the wall repeatedly.
It was by any definition, a freak accident - eliminate any of the things that went wrong - the premature deployment, the off heading, a fraction of a second higher, or lower, or even myself on the bottom ( for that height, I had a highly modified Racer, with a mesh slider, square reserve that would open in about 80-90'), and the incident would have been a fun bar story, instead a horrific tragedy.


By the video we estimated we impacted at 55-60 MPH. Jon Died an hour later of a torn Aorta, I was conscious I am told, but don't remember it after hitting the ground.
The rescue took 8 hours, as were on top of a 400-450' 45-degree talus of very jagged nasty volcanic rocks and I had to be "basketed" down.
I was in hospital for weeks, coma, and spent quite a while in a wheelchair, and a walker.
I didn't work for a year.

Jonathan v4 roman edit.mp4 - Google Drive



The List:
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