Posted on 03/25/2010 7:07:28 PM PDT by JoeProBono
PORT ARANSAS, Texas (AP) -- A skydiver whose parachute collapsed as he was photographing skydiving tandems has died after crashing through a condo roof in Texas.
Witnesses say the man's parachute opened but collapsed when he turned into the wind to land in Port Aransas, a coastal town about 15 miles northeast of Corpus Christi.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
(Actually, I’d be happy with ANY job - even a job that American’s won’t do.)
10-4
join the club:(
i think that you have logged more textual responses on this thread than you have in your entire tenure on FR. :^)
A parachute/sky diving enthusiast once told me that he expected to die doing it someday. He claimed the odds were against him over the long haul. One day, your chute does not open, stay attached, remain deployed properly, etc., or you land in a bad place.
Actually, I first signed on in 1998 but have been disposed of a few times ;-{)
I really like your stuff.
Can you make a picture of the world, turned upside down,
with all the people falling off?
No
PORT ARANSAS — A sky diver with more than 10,000 jumps died Thursday when his parachute collapsed, causing him to fall through the roof of a condominium.
Authorities didn’t release the man’s name pending notification of his family.
The 34-year-old, a Hungarian national living in Raleigh, N.C., was in Port Aransas working at Skydive Atlas during spring break, authorities said.
Within seconds of the crash, a maintenance worker grabbed a ladder and rushed to help the man, witnesses said.
Norm Ellison, a winter Texan from Michigan who lives at the Gulfside Beach condos, said the maintenance worker put up his ladder and started to peel away pieces of roof to get to the man. Two medics soon joined him, using his ladder, Ellison said.
“He was down in a hole between the
attic and the second floor, supporting this poor guy’s broken leg,” Ellison said. “It was a bad sight, I’d imagine he’s going to have a tough time sleeping tonight. (The sky diver) was conscious and talking, he told him his name and a short time later he was dead.”
Port Aransas police and fire officials responded to the condos in the 600 block of Beach Access Road 1A off State Highway 361 about 10:50 a.m.
The unit the sky diver hit was the last in a row of 10, with the field where he was supposed to land beginning no more than 20 feet from where he hit.
Lt. Darryl Johnson said the man was one of 10 sky divers who took off from Mustang Beach Airport about 2 miles from the landing site.
The group of six customers and four employees jumped from an altitude of about 14,000 feet, police reported.
The man killed was the last to jump because he was the group’s camera man, capturing images of the tandem jumps, officials said.
The group normally lands on the beach, Johnson said, but because of wind gusts of as much as 25 mph, the group decided to land in a field as a safety precaution. The nine others landed safely.
Police Chief Scott Burroughs said that by all indications the man’s parachute properly deployed initially, but failed just seconds before impact.
John Lanfor, a spokesman for Skydive Atlas, told police the man was doing a hook-turn maneuver when turbulence partially collapsed his parachute, sending him into a free fall.
Johnson said the condo, which had been sold 10 days ago, was unoccupied at the time of the accident. Emergency workers broke down the front door to try to get to the sky diver and used a fire engine ladder with a basket to lift the man out of the building, Johnson said.
HALO-Flight was waiting in the field to take him to a hospital, but he died shortly after being removed from the home, police said.
Lynn Lunsford, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said there are a handful of sky diving fatalities across the country each year
“This is definitely a rare and unusual occurrence,” Lunsford said.
In 2006, Eric Lee Frost Yager, 30, a Bishop area resident, was killed when his chute failed to open at the Bishop Municipal Airport.
Sharon Brown, who lives in a condo near Thursday’s accident, said she had been watching sky divers land in the field all week.
“We were just talking about it saying we hoped no one got hurt; they are so close to the buildings,” Brown said. “It’s a very sad ending to what looks like a lot of fun.”
Well, how are you going to jump out of one if you .... oh.
Blue skies black death
Let me say it again; They don’t make an airplane big enough to hold all the people it would take to throw me out of it.
__________
LOL
Add me to the club, I’m out of work too.
Smile when you say that, son.
Semper Fi.
L
RIP.
That's not encouraging.
I was, didn't you see it?
It's a good kind of crazy.. usually.
L
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