Guess this now closed DZ

[PROGRESSIVE 0]

Hint: it closed 1989, and was relocated about 10 miles north.

[mx757 4]

Spaceland in League City texas?

opps looked again.. mountains in background...
it's not spaceland that's for sure..

[wmw999 2,374]

Not with those mountains in the background.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[PROGRESSIVE 0]

Another hint: After this DZ had relocated, it had two different DZ operators/owners. The initial DZ owners were killed in a plane crash. That pretty much wiped out their entire club.

The second photo is the current DZ.

[pchapman 278]

I don't know the area at all but it sure has that Colorado Front Range look to it. As for the airport photos, it looks like another little airport about to be swallowed up by subdivisions...

[drjump 0]

Columbine, Co. ?

[PROGRESSIVE 0]

Final hint/final photo:

[PROGRESSIVE 0]

It was Skydive Tooele, Utah. Skydiving resumed at the north end of Tooele, and was called Skydive Salt Lake. However, after their fatal plane crash in Jan 2001, Jack Gutherie moved in and is presently called Skydive Utah!

This old airport was located next to the Tooele Army Depot. My friend, unknowingly, landed his hangglider within the Depot property and was quickly surrounded by Humm V's equiped with roof mounted machine guns. He thought that those bunkers, that are filled with bombs and missles, were some sort of subdivision going up. Signs surrounding the Depot warns trespassers that deadly force maybe used if caught trespassing.

[bclark 0]

The DZ was Skydive Salt Lake (at one time Utah Sky Ranch), but I don't recognize the airport with the closed runway. If I recall correctly the DZ started out at Salt Lake City Airport #2 (U42). (I grew up about a mile from there and watched jumpers from my back yard as a kid. U42 DID have a second, closed runway. But I don't remember it looking like the one in the photo.) Mike and Gayle Hurren owned the DZ. At some point in the late 90's the DZ moved from U42 to TVY (Erda, UT). The DZ started in a couple of relocatable office trailers there and then into the "bubble". As you said, 2001 was when the King Air crash happened and the Hurrens (as well as a bunch of jumpers who were all great people) were killed. Another guy named Trent ran the DZ for a while after that with a Caravan until it went out of business. Jack Guthrie moved Skydive Utah from Cedar Valley Airport and into the old Skydive Salt Lake facilities thereafter.

[bozo 0]

Yeah it was Toole. The Hurrens were good friends.
I jumped with them all weekend before they went in.

bozo
Pain is fleeting. Glory lasts forever. Chicks dig scars.

[PROGRESSIVE 0]

I was at the Wall-Mart in Tooele, when I heard them fly on their down wind leg. It was mostly cloudy, but that turbine had a distinct sound. I lived in Tooele, at the time, and you could'nt miss that sound. That was the last time I heard that plane. The following day, I could see the tail of the plane sticking out of the water. The plane literally dove into the Great Salt Lake. I went to the DZ and saw Nathen's Honda parked there, as well as others. I looked inside the club house window a few days later and it was filled with flowers. So sad. After being in this sport awhile, it is not an uncommon event. But that's never stopped me!