MissBuffDiver 0 #1 April 26, 2014 Home > Local News > Riverside County > Lake Elsinore > Lake Elsinore Headlines LAKE ELSINORE: Local skydiver dies in Arizona /FILE PHOTO Eike Hohenadl parachutes to the ground at Margarita Middle School in Temecula in 2011 as the American flag waves behind him. The jump was part of the school's Veterans Day celebration. 1 of 2 Next Image 372 2 0 A Text Size BY SARAH BURGE April 25, 2014; 03:38 PM Eike Hohenadl, a well-known Lake Elsinore resident and leader in the local skydiving community, died Friday, April 25, in Arizona after his parachute malfunctioned. He was 72. According to a news release from Skydive Arizona, in Eloy, Arizona, an experienced skydiver’s main parachute was not released on the first jump of the day, about 7:40 a.m., and the skydiver did not open the reserve parachute. He died at the scene. The man’s name was not released but Carol Wakefield, a family friend, confirmed that the skydiver who died was Hohenadl. The release said he was participating in a large formation jump, described by the skydiving facility as an invitational 88-way record attempt, but that the incident was not related to the size of the group. No other skydivers were involved in the accident. There were no problems related to the aircraft, and weather conditions were good at the time of the jump, Skydive Arizona said. Hohenadl was an active skydiver and wingsuit instructor who enjoyed doing skydiving demonstrations at public events. In a 2009 interview with The Press-Enterprise, he described the thrill of wingsuit jumping – which involves suits that use fabric stretched between the limbs to create wing-like surfaces that allow a skydiver to glide and spend more time in the air. “Wingsuiters like to live life a little more than the average Kmart shopper,” he said. “It’s the closest thing to human flight.” He was not jumping in a wingsuit on Friday, according to Jocelyn Bernatchez, a spokeswoman for the skydiving facility. Hohenadl had thousands of jumps under his belt and held numerous U.S. Parachute Association licenses and ratings, including safety and training adviser. Hohenadl had escaped from East Germany as a boy and eventually made his way to the United States. He had described that experience as “way more nerve-wracking than jumping from a plane.” Hohenadl fought in the Vietnam War, stationed aboard a 173-foot minesweeper that patrolled the Mekong Delta and the Gulf of Tonkin. In the 90s, he served as manager of a major disposal project at the Fallbrook Naval Weapons Facility involving Vietnam-era napalm. He retired from the U.S. Navy with the rank of captain after more than 30 years of service...Sandy Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MissBuffDiver 0 #2 April 26, 2014 Photo of Eike at Ed Millers memorial @ Elsinore...Sandy Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
