A skydiver is offering a reward for anyone who finds his lost parachute after twisted lines forced him to cut away his main chute and use a backup during a skydiving demonstration jump over Saanich.
On Friday, about 3,000 feet above the Gordon Head neighbourhood, Peter Vos experienced an “aggressive” parachute line twist shortly after jumping out of a plane.
“Right away, I knew it wasn’t going to get any better,” he said.
Relying on years of muscle memory and training, he ejected his main parachute and pulled the ripcord on his reserve chute, then glided down to Centennial Stadium field at the University of Victoria to a cheering crowd, shortly before the UVic men’s soccer team began its game against Trinity Western.
He characterized the incident as a “low speed malfunction” but said he understands his floating blue-and-green parachute may have caused some alarm among Gordon Head residents.
“You think it’s a limp body falling to the ground, but it’s literally just a bunch of fabric,” he said.
It’s only the second time in 35 years of skydiving that Vos has needed to cut away his main parachute, he said.
But he’s been unable to find the ejected parachute. Weekend search parties came up dry.
Vos is offering a reward if anyone finds the blue-and-green patterned parachute and turns it in to Saanich police or UVic Campus Security.
“This is a perfectly good parachute,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with it — it just needs to be inspected and repacked and attached.”
He cautions against anyone trying to sell the professional-level gear for a quick buck. “You can’t sell a parachute that everybody knows is mine.”
Vos said that he has a fairly good idea of where the parachute and the freebag entangled within it had fallen after consulting fellow skydivers and bystander video.
They’ve narrowed it down to an area near Maria Road, a few hundred metres from Centennial Stadium. “It’s definitely south of Dawnview [Crescent], and it’s going to be east of Gordon Head Road,” he said.
“It could be in a backyard, between two buildings, on a roof,” he said. “Every blue tarp and every blue bin recycling box [now] looks like my parachute.”
