“The FAA agreed it seemed “odd” Jacob was wearing a parachute at the time of the crash, the NYT reported.”
It’s not normal in everyday GA, but some people actually do.
Horrible waste of a 1940 Taylorcraft. The stall speed is just 33 mph and he had lots of altitude. There is no excuse that he didn't glide it in if he had an engine problem. Even if he landed in rough terrain it is likely he would have walked away and the plane would have been salvageable. I was a member of a vintage aircraft club. One time I flew with another guy down to Oregon in a prewar WWII Taylorcraft. We had a headwind so cars were traveling faster than us on the freeway below.
I do sometimes bring along a hang glider parachute when flying my ultralight airplane over mountains, but it has a single cylinder Rotax snowmobile engine and is made out of Styrofoam. My life insurance doesn't cover me when flying it. Even then it would take an extraordinary problem to cause me to bale out instead of gliding it in.
For those curious what type of plane is made out of Styrofoam... it is homemade from plans, called a skypup and looks like this:
Mine is painted in the colors of a WWII trainer, yellow and blue.