Where was this OP (not just the UK but which specific dropzone?)?
reserve deployments, whilst not ‘common’, aren’t uncommon either. And any licensed skydiver is always prepared for one and will practice their drills regularly. They happen in ~ 1 in every 800 jumps and when you consider than most jump planes with hold 14-18 people and over a weekend may do 40-50 lifts it’s not uncommon to have one reserve deployment per weekend.
In terms of immediate aftermath:
. whilst still in the sky under the deployed reserve parachute the parachute pilot will assess whether they can still reach the landing area or they need to prepare for an off landing and find somewhere else to land
. Providing they can reach the landing area they will fly the parachute back to there gently and conservatively and land as normal
. once on the ground ground staff will check everyone involved is ok and uninjured
. ground staff and others around will try to locate and retrieve the cut away main parachute
. all involved will be given some time to chill out, no matter how prepared you are these are still high adrenaline situations and once it’s established no one is hurt or harmed everyone needs a second to breathe before reports are taken
. an incident report will be filled in by the jumper/parachute pilot with a senior member of the dropzone management. This will include all details of the kit, what happened and why they think it happened. They ‘why’ can often be confirmed by inspecting the retrieved main parachute. N.B. if it was a tandem skydiver the tandem instructor will be the one to fill on the incident report as they were the one in control of the jump and the parachute system. It is only on very rare occasions where something went catastrophically wrong that a tandem student would be consulted
. if the incident report is deemed to be inconclusive it will be referred to both the police and British skydiving for further investigation
I’m assuming based on your posts that you were the passenger on a tandem skydive where the reserve had to be used. Whilst I understand this would have been scary the fact it was used successfully is a testament to the rigorous safety features in skydiving. What a poster said above (paraphrasing) about ‘it’s important to find out why the first parachute failed because the fault in the first could also occur in the second’ is entirely inaccurate. Reserve parachutes are an entirely different product to main parachutes. They are made differently, tested differently, designed to be deployed and opened different and packed differently (by someone who has gone through rigorous training and has to keep their certification up to date). What would cause a main parachute to fail is entirely different to what would cause a reserve to.
An investigation would have taken place. The conclusion of said investigation could have been reached in a matter of minutes, to a couple of hours, to many weeks, depending on the complexity. Similarly the level the investigation is escalated to would also be based on complexity and severity. All drop zones are duty bound to keep records of all reserve deployments and ensuing investigations. And in the UK these are reported to British skydiving quarterly. The drop zone management also meet quarterly to discuss incident and safety.
skydiving is a small world and a close knit community. Everyone knows someone who knows someone and there is a culture of rigorous safety standards and proper procedure. I have no doubt that following your reserve deployment all proper protocol was followed. However if you do feel anything was missed please first reach out to the drop zone who will be happy to provide and reassurance.