Issued by Angus Pinkerton Chairman of the Flying & Safety Committee 1st April 2019.
All pilots, Instructors, Coaches and Safety Officers must READ, DIGEST AND TAKE ACTION on the contents of this
Notice and keep it for future reference.
If you hold a copy of the BHPA Technical Manual this notice must be inserted into it and retained until it is
withdrawn or superseded on instructions from the Chairman FSC.
When setting up the production of the Quick-Out release buttons in January 2015, about 20 release
buttons of one side were produced incorrectly. Some of these release buttons were accidentally
mounted and at least one such faulty Quick-Out carabiner was put into circulation. The error
eliminates one of the 4 security levels: To open the carabiner, it is sufficient to press only the
correct
release button instead of pressing both release buttons simultaneously.
At the final inspection, every single Quick-Out carabiner undergoes a load test of 2,000 DaN.
However, the error was not noticeable, since the stress test is also passed with only one release
button intact.
If the Quick-Out is operated in accordance with the current version of our operating instructions,
which are available for download on our homepage, the error will be noticed immediately. There it
is
described that the insert of the Quick-Out must click into place by strongly pressing it down
(without
pressing the release buttons simultaneously). A faulty release button prevents this.
We urge all Quick-Out users to check the carabiners before the next use.
We have introduced additional testing procedures for the final inspection of the Quick-Out
carabiners to reliably prevent such errors in the future.
Link to download the operating instructions: finsterwalder-charly.de/en/downloads.html
The picture on the right shows a Quick-Out carabiner with a faulty mounted release button:
Finsterwalder GmbH • Pagodenburgstr.8 • D-81247 Munich
Phone: +49 89 8116528 • Mail: office@finsterwalder-charly.de • www.finsterwalder-charly.de
