Skydiver was 'rushed' through course

Alana Buckley-Carr | March 11, 2008

A WEST Australian skydiving company rushed a foreign student through its training course the day before his parachute spiralled out of control, slamming him into a paddock as his friends videotaped the tragedy.

Skydive Express, one of the country's biggest skydiving clubs, is the subject of a coronial inquiry into five deaths in less than three years.

West Australian Coroner Alastair Hope yesterday criticised the company for failing to ensure a group of Middle East students, in Perth on a school trip, properly understood their parachuting exam.

Sultan Salem Almazrooei, 16, died in 2004, six days after his parachute began spiralling as he came into land at the Skydive Express drop zone in York, 90km east of Perth.

Almazrooei's death, along with those of Japanese Ryo Hoshino, 24, Singaporean Mike Tien, 31, and Australian skydivers Lee David Irvine, 32, and Damien Ivicevich, 32, are being investigated by Mr Hope. All five skydivers died at the Skydive Express York drop zone between March 2003 and January 2006. Almazrooei was the only inexperienced skydiver.

In a disturbing amateur video recording played to the court, the student is seen spiralling quickly as people on the ground yell at him in Arabic to put his arms up. After his heavy landing, the camera operator can be heard saying "F..k me dead".

In what Mr Hope yesterday described as the most concerning of the deaths he was investigating, Almazrooei was permitted to perform a "static line" jump, where he jumped by himself and his parachute was deployed automatically, without him having to release it.

He and 19 of his classmates from Dubai were each deemed to have passed their exam the day before when they answered every question as a group, through a translator. But Mr Hope dismissed many of the Skydive Express exam questions as "ridiculous", saying many people who had not had the proper training could correctly answer the multiple-choice questions.

He said many of the alternatives could automatically be discounted, such as one question which asked: What are the main priorities for your first jump? The suggested multiple choice answers included; a) Smile and look cool, or b) climb out and jump as quickly as possible.

Former Australian Parachuting Federation area safety officer Graham Lee, who is now an employee of Skydive Express, told the inquest the students had poor English and could communicate only through an interpreter.

Mr Lee, who compiled a report for APF, the parachuting regulator, told the Coroner's Court that one of the adults who was translating the training course for the students felt that the Skydive Express instructors rushed through the course.

"(The translator) thought the training was rushed, there were some subjects that weren't covered in detail," Mr Lee said. "(The instructor) didn't explain how to land properly and did not warn about the hazards in landing."

Mr Lee said course notes were provided to the students in English, but they would have been of little assistance because of the language barrier.

The inquest continues.

The Australian