FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Hoping to find clues, an FAA investigator enters the Mokuleia residence where two skydivers fell to their deaths.
A skydiving expert suspects a pack containing a parachute opened prematurely before an instructor and his tandem partner jumped out of a small plane to their deaths Sunday afternoon. Chute might have
opened too soonA sky diving expert thinks the fatal jump
was out of sequenceBy Rosemarie Bernardo
rbernardo@starbulletin.com"I think he might have bumped something that caused his chute to open early," said Clarence Lopez, Hawaii's training and safety advisor for the United States Parachute Association.
Friends and colleagues identified the instructor as Greg Hunter, 44, of Mokuleia. A Honolulu medical examiner identified Margaret Jean Thomas, 18, of Nebraska, as the other victim.
The The Federal Aviation Administration and the Honolulu Police Department are investigating.
Hunter and Thomas jumped out of a Cessna 402 at 9,000 feet sometime before 2:26 p.m., police said. They landed in the back yard of a home at 68-299 Mahinaai St. in Mokuleia.
Hunter attended Baldwin High School on Maui in 1974 and started working as a tandem parachute instructor at Perris Valley Skydiving Center in California in 1989.
According to his resume, he was an avid scuba diver, boat captain and designer of video camera helmets.
In 1992 he received an honorary Purple Heart from Perris Valley Skydiving after he assisted as a medic in a crash involving the center's jump plane that killed 16 of 22 people.
A year later, Hunter officially started Head Hunter Helmets, where he continued to design innovative types of video camera helmets.
For more than a year, Hunter worked at Drop Zone, operated by Air Tugie Productions Ltd., said owner Ken Anderson.
Anderson described Hunter as a kind man whom people were drawn to and a renowned skydiver.
"Students from all over the world have been calling to express their condolences," Anderson said. "He was a very brilliant man, very knowledgeable man and always practiced safety. This comes as a great shock to us."
The accident hit home with Anderson and his wife, Cynthia.
He said that about this time last year, he was involved in a solo sky diving accident when wind shear caused his canopy to bundle up and collapse. Anderson fell about 60 feet to the ground and was in a coma for about five weeks. He underwent severe physical therapy and only recently started walking on crutches.
"No time is a good time for anything like this," Anderson said.
Hunter's family is expected to fly in from Idaho today or tomorrow.
According to Lopez, this is the first tandem sky diving fatality in Hawaii.
"This is rare. This is not something that happens a lot," he said.
Lopez, who has been sky diving since 1968 and was appointed Hawaii's USPA training and safety advisor for the last 17 years, said Hunter and Thomas were traveling about 180 miles per hour when they hit the ground.
Lopez believes something was out of sequence.
"The container is not supposed to open before you throw the drogue (instructor's chute)," he said. "They missed step one. They didn't have enough drag to open it."
Inside the instructor's pack known to skydivers as the container, there is another bag that contains a packed parachute. When the container opens, the bag comes out, and the parachute deploys once the rubber bands are released.
"But we never got to that point yesterday," Lopez said.
When the parachute was released in a "horseshoe" shape about 15 feet above Hunter and Thomas, the reserve chute was pulled. Both parachutes became entangled and did not open, Lopez said.
"I think in the last 45 seconds, he was working as hard as he could to save his life," Lopez said.
Lopez is expected to submit a report on the accident to the USPA's Pacific regional office, which covers Hawaii, Northern California and Northern Nevada.
Thomas had traveled to Hawaii with her infant son to visit her brother who is in the Army, said Lt. Gary Lahens of the Honolulu Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division. Police said Thomas received a gift certificate to go tandem sky diving in Mokuleia as a Christmas present from her family.
FAA Pacific representative Tweet Coleman said investigators will look into the packing assembly of the parachutes. Coleman said FAA officials certify parachute riggers to pack the chutes.
Lopez said three Hawaii sky diving companies -- Skydive Hawaii, Drop Zone and Pacific International Skydiving Center -- conduct more than 12,000 tandem sky diving jumps on Oahu every year. All operate out of Dillingham Airfield in Mokuleia, he added.
USPA Executive Director Chris Needels said this is the second tandem sky diving fatality in the United States this year. The first was in California, he said.
United States Parachute Association
Drop Zone
The Federal Aviation Administration
Honolulu Police Department
