European skydivers have one bad weekend

Two separate stories...two different endings. This one has the happy ending. During a parachute competition in Germany, a skydiver got hung up on the landing gear of the aircraft he was jumping out of. The good news...there was one person left on the plane. The bad news...he was flying the plane. Five other British soldier skydivers had jumped out before the last guy whose chute partially deployed and got tangled on one of the wheels of the Britten-Norman Islander they were flying on. The pilot, aware of the problem, left the cockpit for about 30 seconds while at 3,000 feet above the Joint Service Parachute Centre at Bad Lippspringe to cut the parachute's cord with a knife. The Skydiver was able to deploy his reserve chute after falling free from the aircraft. I believe that warranted a free beer for the pilot from the skydiver at the airport pub.

Now the story with the not-so-happy ending, or should I say beginning. A 29 year old female skydiver in Rapla, Estonia was preparing to board a turboprop on the ramp for a jump at the local airfield when she apparently walked straight into one of the spinning propellers and was killed. Skydive Estonia, the club she belonged to, said she was an experienced skydiver with 224 jumps.

Both of these make be think of one of my favorite quotes about aviation from Captain A. G. Lamplugh:

Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.

Be safe.

(AVweb and Fox News)

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