Keeping the U.S. Army’s 11th Airborne ... airborne

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (KTUU) - It’s a multi-part process, with many checks and balances, to rig a parachute system back together.

It’s work that the riggers with the U.S. Army’s 11th Airborne Division, K Company, 725th Brigade Support Battalion (BSB) knows well, as soldiers lay out, inspect, and repack parachutes in a facility on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

According to Capt. Lucas Eliasson, commander of the Brigade Aerial Support Company (BADC), the unit maintains around 4,000 parachutes, a rather large inventory of systems that requires meticulous attention to detail when packing after use.

“You’re quite literally holding the life of a paratrooper in your hands every single day,” Eliasson said.

He admitted the work can be monotonous, with riggers packing up to 15 parachutes daily, but that personnel get cycled out occasionally to break up the routine.

Eliasson said that riggers also get tasked to perform “proficiency jumps,” when they have to jump with a parachute they packed.

According to Warrant Officer Keenan Hobbs, after a jump occurs, the parachutes are packed by the paratroopers in the field before being brought back to the facility where they will be stacked and stored under a double lock and key.

“The night before ... the packers will pull out and prep their lanes — or the afternoon before, whenever they’re done packing for that day,” Hobbs said. “They’ll prep their lanes by laying out some of their parachutes on the table and putting some other ones below it. So the actual first step is called ‘proper layout.’”

Once the chute is properly laid out, riggers will check that tension devices are properly installed, that the canopy is free of any tears or holes, and the closing loop is not cut, torn, or frayed before they begin the actual packing process.

According to Hobbs, all parachutes require two people to pack and an additional person to inspect each phase of the packing process.

Once a parachute is packed and approved, it will get entered into an army parachute log record and placed back into service.

The records are kept in case there’s ever an instance where a parachute needs to go under a malfunction investigation.

Hobbs said that every rule and regulation riggers have to follow serves a needed purpose to keep soldiers safe.

“Jumping out of an airplane is an inherently dangerous thing to do, and we want to ensure that the parachute — which is essentially that person’s last chance to survive — is packed properly every single time,” Hobbs said.

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