When 7 Parachutes Tangle in the Sky - A SEALs Worst Nightmare!

About this video

Mike Ritland interviews a former Navy SEAL who served on the Navy parachute demonstration team from 1997-2000. The guest recounts performing around 1,500 jumps over three years, including dangerous canopy relative work formations involving seven-person parachute stacks. He describes experiencing nine cutaway malfunctions throughout his jumping career, including incidents caused by wind shears in Key West and later by a back injury from combat wounds that prevented him from deploying his main parachute.

Key takeaways

• The guest performed approximately 1,500 jumps over three years on the Navy SEAL parachute demonstration team, with Kansas City Chiefs games being his favorite venue due to enthusiastic fans and opportunities to jump into downtown areas
• The guest experienced nine parachute cutaway malfunctions across his career: six on the jump team (caused by equipment issues and wind shears during formation work), and three later while instructing (caused by a back injury from combat wounds that seized up and prevented him from deploying his parachute)
• The guest describes canopy relative work as high-risk parachuting where seven jumpers build stacks by linking parachutes mid-air and rotating positions, with wind shears sometimes causing multiple parachutes to deflate and tangle, though he reports that time seemed to slow down during emergencies allowing him to follow training protocols
• The guest and Ritland question whether the jump team remains worthwhile given serious injuries to team members, noting that the guest’s teammate Jeff Smith became paraplegic from a stadium landing and that the team is no longer exclusively SEALs

Episode details: published September 22, 2025 · 4.9K views · 14:16 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Stories told by Mike Ritland’s podcast guests are the guests’ own accounts, attributed to them — not independently verified. Commentary is Ritland’s, presented as his analysis.

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