Malfunctions 101

Midway through day one of skydiving school we’re seated on collapsible chairs in a loft beneath the curved metal ceiling of a hangar, trying to ignore the blare of training videos downstairs and focus on our instructor’s words. This is Malfunctions Class, and Cindy is demonstrating lifesaving procedures with the zeal and determination of a fire-and-brimstone preacher, fervently driven to save our bodies, if not our souls. For a half hour she’s been yelling above the din as she holds up a dozen large cards one at a time. They show detailed sketches or photographs of various malfunctions that are known to partially or completely collapse the colorful, rectangular parachutes known as canopies. The cards should be captioned Manageable, All but Hopeless, and Dig Your Own Grave as You Land. The course is overtly intimidating, and I’m sure they like it that way. This is when they want you to drop out if you’re harboring second thoughts about jumping, not four hours later, from an airplane with nothing but 10,500 feet of air between you and dirt — hard-packed dirt that would welcome some new aeration and a heavy dose of fertilizer.

The card we’re studying, a Manageable, shows tangled lines above the left shoulder of the skydiver. Where lines are supposed to neatly connect to the canopy, they’re looped over the top instead, constricting and partially collapsing it. This is one of at least a dozen ways your canopy can fail as your air-to-earth rate of descent and deadly impact exponentially increases. You might never experience a malfunction, but the numbers suggest you should expect one out of every thousand jumps. What they’re trying to impress upon us: That one could be your first.

“You can land this way, but you’re gonna make tight circles all the way down and you can’t steer!” Cindy yells. “You’ve gotta get those lines down! Whatta ya do?”

We’ve been here for a while, and we know what to say. The four of us respond in unison, like clones: “Tug hard on the left lines with both hands and quickly release. Check the ground. Look up and repeat. If it doesn’t work, pull the ripcord to cut it away and release the reserve canopy.”

“That’s RIGHT! Remember, you don’t want to pull out your reserve below 1,000 feet! DON’T WAIT!”

Wait? Not a problem, I think. I’ve already decided to pull the lines exactly once and then pull the ripcord to deploy the reserve. We’ve been instructed to pull lines in our right hands or those in our left, or both, depending on which malfunction we identify above our heads. What’s odd is that realistically I can’t believe anyone would take more than a second as they plunge toward earth in a dizzying spiral to determine which of several pictures their emergency resembles, and pause to remember the correct response: Let’s see. Should I pull on the right as in illustration 7 showing right lines constricting the middle, or might this configuration more accurately correspond to sketch number 8? When faced with the real-life scenario, clear-headed memory recall and rational thought would vanish like ripcords thrown to the wind. Most of us would waste no time pulling the cord that simultaneously cuts away the main canopy and deploys the reserve. Most of us would pull anything in sight. If a bird flew by, we’d pull it.

Still, according to Cindy, hastily deploying the reserve canopy is a judgment call that can cost you your life. Deploying the reserve, or secondary chute, is not always the safest choice. The reserve is smaller and not as safe, and it’s more prone to malfunction than your main. If the reserve also malfunctions, you can be out of options.

This is one of those Why-am-I-here? moments. I resolve to keep my composure and give it one try. Imagining myself a gymnast on the rings, I see myself straining, purple-faced, as I raise my body above my hands and drop, jerking the lines neatly into place: one screaming, maximum pull.

My partners in malfunction are a study in contrasts. Al is an ex-Marine who jumped with the round chutes. He talks about it briefly during our breaks outside the hangar between squinting draughts of his cigarette and glances toward the horizon. “That’s jumping by the seat of your pants. You can’t tell for sure where you’re going to land, and you can’t slow it down like you can with a canopy.” He’ll take several days’ worth of classes before he’s re-certified, but he’s all but guaranteed to qualify for solo, radio-assisted freefall by this afternoon. Brian, Josh, and I expect to freefall today, but not solo. We’ll have two instructors jumping with us to test our performance. They’ll fly alongside, then grab onto loops on our packs when it’s ripcord time, and with split-second judgment quickly let go when the canopy deploys. Our desperate hope is that they will hang on tightly if it doesn’t.

Brian and Josh have only one thing in common: they’re in this course courtesy of loved ones who have granted them skydiving lesson gift certificates for their birthdays. On break they both say they’re jumping for the sense of flying and the adrenaline rush, but from that point on any similarity between the two spins into the mist. Brian’s a married engineer in his late 20s. His neat, corporate manner doesn’t fit my picture of a man drawn to adventure sports. I can picture him driving a bright-red SUV to the mall on a quest for a new pair of khakis. Maybe that’s why he lacks credibility when he says he’s jumping “for the rush.”

“Really?” I flatly reply.

On the other hand, Josh, with his long ponytail and bad-attitude strut, is frightfully persuasive. The 16-year-old looks as if he jumped directly out of an ESPN broadcast of the X Games. With Josh it’s, “I wanna feel the rush. … I’m an adrenaline junkie.” He loves exhilaration; danger makes him feel more alive. He says he wants to skydive because “It’s gotta be the ultimate rush.” His parents and sister are spending the entire day here, smiling proudly whenever I see them. I have children and several young friends close to Josh’s age, and as I talk with him during our break I wonder with genuine concern, How long will this child live?

“I’m gonna show my video in school Monday,” he tells me during the break. Something about this statement seems odd. For some reason, as I look him in the eye, I realize that we’re exactly the same height.

“Hm. So am I.” I’m struck with the ironic contrasts between us, and I imagine Josh sees it, too. He’s a high-school student, whereas I’m just beginning graduate school 20 years after graduating from college so that I can teach writing. I’m about twice his age; yet here we both are. Looking at him again, I wonder why any high-school teacher would allow a student to use a skydiving video to work his way up the social order. I’m jumping for my first graduate-school writing project. Naturally, the video will be part of my class presentation. Not the same.

“So, is bungee jumping anything like flying?” I ask Josh just before our break ends.

“No. It’s falling,” he says bluntly with a satisfied grin. If I’m reading the grin right, he likes falling.

“That’s a good thing?” I ask. “I couldn’t stand to feel like I was falling,” I add. “It sounds more like a nightmare than something I’d want to pay for.”

“The thing is the rush,” he says as his alter ego, mall-Brian, nods in agreement. Raising his chin a little, Josh adds, “And bungee gives a hell of a rush.”

“I wonder if skydiving is more like flying?” I say to no one in particular. Al and the instructors aren’t around so we have no one to ask, but Brian says he’s heard that it is. Thank you, Brian, for settling that.

* * *

Malfunctions class resumes, and my mind is adrift, a malfunction in the making. I yawn, breathing in the smell of raw lumber and moldering October leaves. They should teach this class after lunch, I think. Maybe they’re reluctant to scare us on a full stomach. I’m unusually hungry, sipping orange juice as I fight a headache from the nonstop racket of videos, students’ first jumps recorded with background music. Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” reverberates throughout the hangar. Stretching, I glance at the ceiling, floor, and window behind Cindy’s back, where the leaves outside glow brilliant red and gold.

It’s then that I notice the antics of a dozen or so bees in the room, a comic airshow executed in perfect tempo with our instructor’s words. As Cindy explains progressively worse malfunctions, disconsolate bees hurl themselves at the window behind her like delinquent students shooting a continuous round of spitballs. Some of the diminutive flyboys do mock spinouts across the room while others nose-dive dramatically to the floor, adding to the unsettling pile of insects that are dead or twitching at Cindy’s feet. I wonder if I believe in bad omens. Melissa means honeybee, and I’ve always liked that. Scientists say honeybees aren’t aerodynamic. They’re just not built to fly. But honeybees aren’t bound by grim diagnoses; they’re too busy flying around with one finger raised. I wonder if scientists have tested to see if honeybees fly with a finger in the air, wonder if they’ve tested for intelligence and a sense of humor because I really think these pranksters are poking fun at Cindy. Not that I question her sincerity, but it’s clear that the urgency of the class, the way we’re drilled and quizzed again and again, has less to do with reversing a malfunction than the five pages of disclaimers we had to sign before taking the course. Surviving a serious problem seems impossible. You’d be soup for sure; they’d have to suck you up with a hose. But no matter what, our relatives could never claim they had failed to warn us about the risks.

Cindy pulls me back. “You don’t want to pull the secondary chute too soon because if it malfunctions and your primary chute cuts away, YOU’RE OUT OF OPTIONS!”

I tense and ask, “Has that happened?”

“It CAN happen! You want to try to correct the malfunction before pulling the secondary. But don’t get too involved! Check your altimeter! If nothing’s working, get rid of your canopy! Don’t forget about your secondary and don’t wait too long!”

“Forget?” Brian asks. He’s sitting stiffly upright wearing a wry smile. He has the look of someone who’s trying to look nonchalant.

“People forget!” Cindy says. “Some jumpers die with perfectly intact, operational chutes! They panic or they get caught up in the free fall and forget to look at their altimeters! Things happen FAST out there!”

Cindy doesn’t volunteer gruesome stories. On another break we have to rely on each other for true death-drop tales. Like the one about the group that was dropped into light clouds, not over the drop-zone but into the cold waters of Lake Erie. Or the one about an experienced skydiving photographer who wanted to shoot one more jumper at the end of a busy day. Hastily snatching up some gear, he failed to notice the pack he was grabbing was empty. Sadly, he only realized his mistake after he’d jumped. He kept on shooting all the way down.

Back in class, Al asks Cindy about that photographer. Cindy, who has logged over 2,000 jumps herself, says he’s a good example of what can happen when you get too experienced and too comfortable. Downstairs, the skydiving videos seem even louder. “Most injuries occur when things get too routine! When you log three or four thousand jumps, you have to be careful! PAY ATTENTION out there! Always know where the ground is! Always check your equipment!”

I’m not worried about switching to autopilot. Panic is the worst enemy of newbies, and I wonder: How do you know if you’ll panic or miscalculate till you’re there?

* * *

I feel like I’ve dropped into an episode of The Twilight Zone: The Never-Ending Class. For the last time, Cindy drills us on the ultimate gravedigger malfunction. Your main (canopy) opens into a tangled mess. You try to cut it away, but when your reserve deploys, your main stays attached, and now the two canopies are knotted together. The accompanying sketch is arresting in its hopelessness, futility artistically rendered, a graphic representation of every no-win situation ever faced.

“What do you do?” our instructor asks.

Quickly make peace with God? I think. The room is profoundly quiet — beyond quiet; it’s uncanny. As if on cue the videos have stopped, and the air vibrates in the void. I’m a little worried about Brian; he looks pale. Josh is the one to finally speak, his voice quiet but as irreverent as ever.

“Pull-on-the-lines-and-ne-ver-give-up,” he says in a mocking, robotic tone.

“That’s right,” she says, ignoring the attitude. “Keep trying to get at least some of them free. If you get your canopies to partially function, it’ll slow your rate of descent.”

“But what are your odds of living through that?” Josh asks.

Cindy sticks close to her credo. “Just remember to keep trying. Never give up.”

While three of us exchange glances, Al begins to yawn. I look at my knee, surprised to see it trembling. Quickly, I look away and cover it with my hand.

* * *

Class lets out and only Brian, Cindy, and I are standing in the loft. Someone gives Cindy a message and Brian learns there’s been some mistake — a mix-up of scheduling. Turns out, his gift certificate was for a tandem-canopy jump, a skydiving ride of sorts, not part of a solo skydiving certification course. Instead of what he thought he was signed up for — a radio-assisted free fall and canopy jump — he’ll be firmly harnessed to an instructor all the way down, a jump that doesn’t count toward certification. He’s wasted all day in classes he doesn’t need unless he wants to apply those hours to a certification course in the future. He urges Cindy to recheck, but it’s true; someone had placed him in our class by mistake. He raises his voice when she apologetically confirms that his jump required only brief instruction. I can understand his frustration, but I’m relieved. When he leaves, Cindy shoots me a look.

“It was for the best,” I say.

Not that I’m the bravest one in the class. Cindy has just explained to the group — she saved this for last — that when we parachute solo and forever after we’ll have to do algebra in our heads, in-flight. But take heart. If executed correctly, these calculations will enable us to turn precisely, descend at optimal speed, and land squarely in the drop zone. The exact equation looks this: x = (a, forward motion + b, rate of descent in mph) × c, wind speed ÷ g, tides – (d, e, and f, your exact distance from the moon). The consequence of error is impalement on trees or electrocution on wires. So that’s it, I thought. I will not go for full certification. Of one thing I’m sure: Any sport that pits my life against my in-head math skills is not the sport for me. Maybe I can still enjoy today.

Cindy nods. “It was for the best.”

* * *

It’s almost sunset when the rebel jumps. My husband is standing with Cindy and me in the grassy drop zone adjacent to the rural airport’s runway. Josh’s flight and jump have taken some time, and the sun is sinking with the speed of a cooling hot-air balloon. He lands light but fast, yanking the lines down hard, and I’m not surprised to see him run to a stop with a defiant look visible even from this distance. He’s refused to slide in on his backside like we’ve all been ordered to do to avoid a sprained ankle or two. My husband and I stand near the equipment at the edge of the wide-open doors of the hangar, and we greet Josh as he strides over to return his gear.

“How was it?” I ask. Reading the outsized grin, it must have been good.

“Awesome,” he says. He’s returning the next day, going for full certification. His parents have agreed to let him complete the course. He removes the blue jumpsuit that covered his clothes and hands it to me. It’s the only one in our size.

I tug it on and turn to face my husband. Our daughters aren’t here. I want to inspire courage and shelter them from front-row seats to a worst-case outcome. This is one of those times when I hope my husband will respect my autonomy. As a pilot, he understands my lifelong interest in flight. We met when I was into my glider phase and he was fresh out of the Army, where he’d flown planes and helicopters. I’d loved finding the thermal, gliding on the warm current of nature’s fuel that carries sailplanes, hawks, and eagles upward in graceful curves, but beneath the plexiglass bubble of the fuselage, I’d resented the loud wind and hot air. Raptors are free, but a clear cage had come between me and the sky and the bald eagle that had soared like my fledgling off my left wing. I had not found true flight.

But my husband’s easy smile is gone, the tall frame uncharacteristically still, the voice low: “Pilots have a saying: Why jump out of a perfectly good plane?” It’s an unexpected statement — poignant, even funny, above all a real good question, and it hits like sleet. Skydiving must not generate respect in every circle. From where pilots sit, the whole concept of skydiving must seem bizarre.

My gaze is steady when I respond: “I’m not thinking that if I die, at least I was doing what I enjoyed. If I thought I was going to die, I wouldn’t do it.” I don’t mind taking a chance on a broken leg — it might be worth it — but death? I’ve already weighed the odds, and they weigh in my favor.

* * *

The Cessna is no place for claustrophobics. I’ve spent countless hours in single-engine aircraft, but they somehow look bigger with seats, and the only seat in this fuselage is the pilot’s. Beside the pilot, Dave, the videographer, sits on the floor facing the tail. Dave works with my husband, and he recommended this skydiving school. Like Dave, I sit facing the tail, but I’m leaning against the pilot’s seatback. Chris and Ron, the instructors and school owners who’ll jump with me, sit facing the prop. I’m silent. It’s not unusual for me to be quiet, but silence can mean I’m tense or upset, and right now I’m pensive — not registering fear so much as an awareness that there’s still time to change my mind. Just making sure. The guys are talking shop, yelling above the noise of the engine, and I’m listening halfway to their conversation as we begin our climb to a freezing 10,500 feet above our families and friends.

I check my altimeter. We’re up approximately 5,000 feet. I sit up straighter and look out the window at the ground trying to visualize myself climbing out the door on the other side to a small step under the wing, the most intimidating part of the jump to me. My thoughts have isolated themselves from the conversation around me. I’m reviewing malfunctions and their correct responses when I feel my nervous system activate — not the intense panic of stage fright, but an uneasy, mid-grade anxiety crawling from the depths of my core to the tips of my hands. It’s as if cold water has invaded my veins. My intuition is telling me I have good reason to be afraid.

Should I back out? I wonder. It’s not as if I’ll be the first person who has ever bailed. My thoughts swing back and forth, pro and con, a windsock in a storm. Questioning my motives, I wonder whether I’m following through out of pride and the fact that I’ve already paid my fee, then I instantly remember the odds that favor success. I think of a friend who took skydiving lessons when she was young. Beth had gotten as far as the open door and refused to jump out. She’s a doctor of medical ethics as well as a counselor and full of good sense. Better embarrassed than dead, she’d reasoned. But she suffers from claustrophobia and fear of heights, and I wonder how she had gotten that far. I close my eyes and pray for wisdom. Someone calls out the altitude: “Eight thousand five hundred feet!” Opening my eyes, I see Ron in front of me, seriously studying my face. “Changing your mind?” he asks.

“No. I was reviewing malfunctions,” I lie. What I’m thinking is, I want to fly. I’m creating a malfunction by inadvertently nurturing fear the same way my mind remembers embarrassment and reacts with anxiety, which causes embarrassment: a × b = a². Sometimes our worst enemies are looking back and thinking negatively.

“Don’t think about malfunctions,” Ron says. “Review your routine. Tell me out loud, what are you going to do?” Cindy has beaten into us a detailed routine that Ron and Chris will test me on as I free-fall, and obediently I begin to relate the sequence. I’m visualizing it as I go, and almost instantly, as I speak it out, I put malfunctions aside and focus on success. A few sentences in and I feel my body relax.

I feel good, and just in time. Ron tells us to kneel and move into position for the climb out. “Are we ready to do this?”

“Yeah!” we all yell. We’re a team, pumped up and eager to go. But our attention shifts to Dave, the videographer, and not simply because he’s opened the door. One of my instructors has noticed that Dave has put on his helmet but not his goggles, which still hang from a cord around his neck. His face flushed, he glances at me, and I must look uncharacteristically pale. I feel my wide-open eyes narrow into a concerned reprimand. Maybe you should check your pack, I think. Maybe we all should.

Dave is a jumpmaster, a veteran jumper who has logged more than 4,000 jumps, and I wonder if with all his experience he might be reaching that dangerous level of familiarity and routine. Is his mind lapsing into autopilot, a flawed human imitation of the computer model? The overworked human machine can miss operation two or four.

“That’s what can happen when you’ve jumped all day,” Dave tells me, possibly attempting to turn an embarrassing moment into a lesson. To my instructors, who are also his bosses, he admits, “I could have gotten into trouble there. In that wind this would have been all over my face. Thanks a lot.”

I recheck my equipment. My nerves are impressively steady, my mind focused. I really am ready for this. A human antenna, I’m acutely conscious of this moment. I feel peacefully exhilarated, not nervous or stiff, and I easily crawl to the door on my knees. I can’t believe I’m finally doing this. How many people ever see this view, feel this moment? Looking at the ground, the open view from this height isn’t frightening, as I’ve expected, only beautiful.

Dave turns the camera toward me for an inside shot as I tune into my senses. I’m a dog hanging its head out the window of a speeding car, and when I smile, the hurricane force flaps my lips and sticks them to my gums and teeth. Dave climbs out, clings to the side, and hangs on, Spider-Man with a camera. He’ll jump a moment before I do. Ron climbs out next and waits for me, clinging to the strut beneath the right wing. Holding onto the doorframe with a tight grip as Chris grabs the left ring on my pack, I push my right foot hard against the wind onto the outside step beneath the wing. As Ron reaches for my right pack ring, I shift my hands into position on the strut. I stand under the wing and energy replaces the calm exhilaration I felt a minute ago, as the prop blasts a polar storm up my nose and threatens to launch me into the void.

But I don’t budge. I growl, hang on like a warrior, turn my head to the right, and look Ron in the eye. The routine begins. “Ready!” I yell loudly, but I can’t hear myself above the scream of the engine, prop, and wind. He nods. I turn to my left and look at Chris, who’s poised at the edge of the door. “Ready!” I yell. Chris nods.

I dip my knees three times and without hesitation leap into a backward dive. Mid-leap, the wind lifts me, and I tap my helmet against the underside of the wing. Crap. I concentrate on arching my back and keeping my eyes open. I expect a flipping sensation but don’t feel anything that has a name, only an instantaneous, bright-and-blurry sense. Assuming an arch position, I stabilize and begin my routine: one, two, three, four, check altimeter, count again, touch the ripcord on my pack, count, check altimeter …

Ron and Chris are right beside me now, testing my performance and holding the pack rings in case I get into trouble. I’m into my feelings and my instructions. I want to execute the perfect routine and hold the perfect arch — without good form I could somersault out of control — and it takes concentration and strength against the wind. This is a test, after all, and I want my A. As I count and check, I also test the question I’ve waited years to solve: Does this feel like flying or falling? I monitor my altitude as the wind rips upward against my face and body and forces its way through my flimsy jumpsuit, sweatshirt, and turtleneck into my lungs and ears.

I feel the throb of twin earaches. Why didn’t I think of earplugs? I didn’t expect it to hurt. No matter. You can rise above it, I remind myself. You’ve had natural childbirths, after all. But I’m ready to do Lamaze breathing against the pain. Is free fall like flying? I don’t think so. It’s not flying, it’s not falling; it’s as if I’m not moving, but it’s incredibly windy and cold. I don’t think I like it, yet. What I’d like is to pull the ripcord now. Maybe canopy gliding will be better, I hope.

Reaching the end of my counting routine, I check my altimeter again. I’m slightly lower than I should be. I salute the men on my right and left, but when I reach for the ripcord I don’t feel it. This was one of the problems Cindy talked about. Some people die with fully operational chutes. If you have shorter arms, like me, it can be hard to reach that thing. Seconds count up here, and two reaches can drop you low. A few more reaches can kill you. I reach again and pull. Then I toss the ripcord and handle away instead of holding them between my teeth, as Cindy taught us to do. Hopefully it won’t land on someone’s head. But Ron and Chris are pleased, and they give me a smile and thumbs up.

I feel a painless tug as my position shifts upright, the harness tightens, and my rate of descent slows to what feels like a full stop, the only time I’ve felt the sensation of falling. The calm air feels warm, and instantly all is still after the blare of my primal scream. Immediately, beautifully, my canopy deploys. My angels have vanished, and I’m looking through raptors’ eyes at landmarks, autumn colors, crisscrossed cornfields, patchworks of dotted woods. I wince from my freezing-wind earaches, but so what. Nothing will ruin the beauty of now.

My radio clicks on. It’s test-time again. “Hey, Melissa, you’re doing great,” says the man in my helmet. “I’m going to put you through some maneuvers, okay?” And with that I pull right and left as directed, executing short turns with each tug. With my small shoulders it’s harder to pull down the lines than the simulation in Canopy Class this morning, but I give it maximum pull and begin to soar.