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TSA...need I say more?
I already knew that the TSA could do pretty much whatever they want, but I'm pretty upset by what just happened to a fellow skydiver. According to the FAA, we are allowed to carry our skydiving rigs on commercial flights (I've done so without issue in the past). Many skydiving rigs have an Automatic Activation Device to activate the reserve parachute if the jumper is incapacitated. It works by firing an explosive charge, but since it's an FAA approved device located in the reserve container that can only be packed by an FAA licensed rigger you just have to show the proper documents to the TSA and they are not supposed to open the reserve...I guess O'Hare International does not care.
She had her rig torn apart by the explosives "expert" at O'Hare, even after she asked to have a supervisor present before he opened the containers. Later, once the supervisor arrived, she was pretty much told that O'Hare TSA had their own policy, which was something to the effect of they will open any skydiving rig with an AAD that anyone attempts to carry on, and they don't care what the FAA regulations are. At this point, she's not sure how much damage was done to her gear...I don't understand how they can say they know what the actual policy is but they are not going to follow it.
It sucks, really. I fly alot, but it's reaching the point where I'm afraid to now. I've been given a hard enough time about carrying on video cameras (apparently it was suspicious that we had multiple cameras). I would never check my skydiving gear, for fear that something would happen to it. We had a skydiver show up at my home dropzone from out of state, and when her gear was inspected by our rigger at check-in it was found that her reserve ripcord had been cut and put back in it's housing so it would be easy to miss on a pre jump gear check. Essentially, this would have killed her if she had made a skydive and had a malfunction....
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