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Location |
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Jump Information |
| Date: |
2008-06-21 |
Category: |
Other  |
| Country: |
United States |
Factors: |
Freefall Collision
Aircraft Issues
|
| State: |
MO |
Jump Type: |
Hop and Pop |
| Drop Zone: |
St Louis Skydiving Center |
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Gear |
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Personal Information |
| Container: |
|
Sex: |
Male |
| Main: |
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Age: |
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| Reserve: |
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Jumps: |
175 |
| AAD: |
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Years in Sport: |
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| RSL: |
|
Name: |
Jose Connelly |
| Description |
A jumper with 175 jumps was doing a hop n’ pop out of the Beech 99 at 5,000 feet. Before the load the jumper let the pilot know that he would like to do a hop n’ pop to which the pilot advised the jumper that he would give him the green light over the windsock. According to witnesses on the aircraft, as the plane approached 5,000 feet, the jumper opened the door and exited the airplane in a “leaping” exit, jumping up with a good deal of force. The green light had not come on yet and the airplane was approximately 0.6 miles prior to the airport (~0.9 miles prior to the intended spot) still in a climbing attitude under full power. The jumper struck his head on the horizontal stabilizer, approximately 8 feet out from the fuselage. A witness in the airplane saw the jumper grab his face after the impact and then continue to tumble until losing sight of him. The jumper was found approximately 1.5 hours later in some dense woods with nothing deployed.
According to the pilot, he was just about to begin his level-off for jump-run when he felt a slight bump. He realized that a jumper had exited and commented to the jumper in the right seat that “he hadn’t even turned on the green light yet,” not yet realizing what had happened to the exiting jumper. Standard procedure calls for the pilot to level off, pull back the power, put down the flaps, and start a slight descent to keep the tail high on jump-run. With the jumper exiting early, the plane was still in a nose-high, tail-low, high-power configuration.
The aircraft landed uneventfully and a search was immediately commenced. With the help of over 50 search personnel on the ground and in the air, the jumper’s body was located shortly thereafter. The jumper was using borrowed gear while waiting for replacement parts for his own rig. Neither the borrowed rig, nor his own equipment had an AAD, nor was the jumper wearing a helmet. |
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