My Parachute Malfunctioned Mid-Air. I Was Plummeting

I plummeted to the deck, my half-opened canopy flapping and flailing like a plastic shopping bag tumbling along a city road.

G-forces yanked my body to and fro; my oxygen mask was wrenched to one side and my left arm seemed pinned to my ribs by gravity. Everywhere was chaos.

I watched the black of sky and the tangled, twisted lines that connected my harness to a now collapsed 'chute as the world tumbled over and over, round and round.

It was as if I'd been dropped into the capsule of a fairground waltzer as it pitched and yawed, only this ride was turbocharged and potentially fatal. Rational thought and methodical action, I realized, was suddenly everything.

If I couldn't cut away the flapping bag of linen above me with the pull of a cord, I'd be seen off in a very messy, though blessedly swift ending.

Don't flap, mate. I told myself. Don't f******g flap.

Really, I should have had it in me to wriggle out of what seemed to be a fairly routine parachute failure. Compared to some of the many scrapes I'd experienced in war, in which I'd come close to being shot dead, or detonated into pieces by an IED, this was a situation that granted me a certain amount of control.

I knew my canopy would open fully if I could untangle the twisted lines above; a reserve 'chute also gave me a fairly solid fallback position. Struggling against gravity, I freed both hands and grabbed at the risers, kicking out my legs in opposite directions like a frog.

I'd been told during countless drills that by generating enough violent force it was possible to correct the twisted lines—unless, of course, I was really unlucky.

As I kicked around, the situation didn't seem to be improving. My lines were still tangled and a worrying realization dawned upon me.

By the looks of things, I'd been really unlucky.

How had it come to this? My jump that night had been a training effort, not a serious operation: A full mission profile, in which the operators involved were expected to land on a designated landing zone (LZ) with the type of kit normally required for a real-time job.

A large bag had been slung between my legs. I was set with a weapon, my sniper rifle and helmet—my body had been weighed down by ammo, ballistic plates, radios and night vision goggles.

As the plane moved above our target, the unit had stacked up in the back, ready to swoop into the darkness before opening our 'chutes and, at that moment, everything seemed to be in order. I'd run an equipment check and double-check beforehand. Then I'd checked and double-checked everything again.

I was good.

The light at the back of the plane glowed green. It was go time. I'd then watched as my teammates plunged forwards until it was my turn. And I stepped off the tail ramp and dropped into the sky, scooping at the air around me with my hands in order to maintain a firm body position as

I fell. For a second, everything was silent and still. Then the air began buffeting around me as I gathered velocity. Before long the wind resistance had built into a roaring hurricane as I plummeted down, down, down, while a methodical countdown ticked over in my head.

One thousand. Two thousand. Three thousand.

The type of parachutes I'd been trained to use were pretty big and normally took around eight seconds to fully open, but in those first few moments I became locked in a violent struggle. G-forces twisted my body and there was no way to lift my head or to check on what was happening with the 'chute above me.

Four thousand. Five thousand. Six thousand.

Something was off. I was falling quicker than I should have been, though there was some reassurance in the fact that I wasn't yet free-falling—there was a little drag in the air around me, which meant that my canopy had partially opened, but then I caught a glimpse of the fabric above.

I'd experienced a seriously unfortunate break, a kit malfunction, and given that untwisting the lines by kicking and thrashing wasn't going to work, I had no other choice but to attempt a cut-away of the main canopy before releasing the reserve. This was easier said than done, however.

Firstly, I'd have to pull the release cord to cut away from the main 'chute. Secondly, I'd have to yank at another to release the backup. Then, in a moment of almost comical timing, my jacket zip failed, ripped open and billowed about my face.

I was suddenly blinded.

This isn't good, I thought. I'm losing altitude. I need to make a move on my reserve 'chute and fast.

The calm I'd enjoyed moments earlier was fast evaporating. But we all knew the risks that accompanied a role in the military elite and nobody was in any doubt that your time could be up at any moment—in training or conflict. Was this mine?

I wrestled with my 'chute, but the velocity and wind resistance pummelling my body were becoming increasingly powerful, which meant the chances of my wriggling free were shortening considerably.

I felt nauseous and close to blacking out—everything seemed out of control.

My left hand clasped around the yellow handle connected to my upper left chest, which I knew would jettison my main canopy, but I also needed to pull at the red handle to release the reserve.

When I looked down, it was only a foot away from my face but reaching for it was a serious effort—the pressures being exerted upon me were too strong.

Essentially, I was armwrestling with gravity. Meanwhile, the other lads in the unit had seen me falling through the sky as their canopies opened up. I later learned that they'd been trying to raise me on the comms, but my antennae had been ripped away as I'd spiralled through the air. Like me, they guessed my time was slipping away.

I only had a second or two to take positive action. I tensed and flexed, pulling at the yellow cord and hoping for the best. Instantly, my main parachute ripped away and I was free-falling, accelerating towards the ground.

One, two, three seconds passed as I arched my spine, set the legs and head back and reached forward in order to maintain a strong body shape in the air. I then punched my right hand forward aggressively, freeing my arm from the clutches of gravity and yanked at the red cord.

There was a heavy tug. The reserve canopy blossomed open and I lurched upwards, feeling the reassuring drag of wind resistance. I experienced a huge sense of relief.

The adrenaline burning through me seemed to cool a little as I reassessed my situation. I had to reboot. First things first: Was everything still working? I took control of the parachute risers and ran through a series of checks. The positives: I could move to the left and to the right; I was able to break and flare; everything was still operational.

Well, I won't be landing in a ball of hurt, I thought.

The negatives: I had to work out where I was. Given the darkness it was impossible to guess at my position, or to pick out any recognizable features, or teammates, on the ground below.

By the looks of things I was going to be well short of the LZ. The only question was: by how much?

I quickly located the correct bearing and pulled my knees into a tuck position in order to reduce the wind resistance around me. I then altered the canopy's drive and surged towards the LZ.

My aim was to shave away as many running meters between my teammates and me as possible, and I picked a spot between two rural outbuildings and swooped between them gracefully, sprinting into an area of cover.

I spun my canopy around, performed a quick search of the area for any mock hostiles and fixed the radio. It was probably my most impressive landing on the job, ever. Oh, the irony.

All of us are required to take a leap of faith from time to time, whether that's in our business or personal lives. It might be that we've come up with an actionable idea that requires a risky financial investment, or we've pushed for a new kind of career altogether.

Or maybe we've decided to start a new life abroad or retrain in an entirely unfamiliar field.

None of these decisions come easily; the work required to succeed can be painful and throughout there will be dark nights of the soul, moments of self-doubt and a hell of a lot of fear.

I know these feelings all too well because I experienced them, both literally—having thrown myself from a plane on a number of night operations—and figuratively, when starting the technical clothing company ThruDark.

Luckily, I'd been schooled for challenging events throughout my military career in
what felt like a never-ending succession of tests—leaps of faith that prepared me for elite service.

The mindset instilled by my progress became the glue that would help bring ThruDark into existence, but this same glue can be applied to many forms of civilian endeavour.

This is an adapted excerpt from Anthony Stazicker's book, The Hard Road Will Take You Home, published by Atlantic Books.

With an impressive 13 years of distinguished and decorated military service, Anthony Stazicker, also known as Staz, was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross for combat actions in 2013. Staz left the UK Special Forces in 2018 and launched the technical clothing company, ThruDark. ThruDark is now known as one of the best high-performance outerwear brands in the UK.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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