Navy sailor dies in
Oahu sky-diving
mishap

His main parachute failed, and
the reserve chute opened too late,
Skydive Hawaii says

A 24-year-old sky diver died on the North Shore yesterday after his parachute failed to open.

The sky diver was a Navy sailor based at Pearl Harbor, but the Medical Examiner's Office and military officials are withholding his name pending notification of family members.

Frank Hinshaw, president of Skydive Hawaii, said the sailor had made 171 jumps with his company, one of several sky-diving operations at Dillingham Airfield.

The sailor attended free-fall school in August 2003 and had set a goal of making 200 jumps before he was due to travel to South Korea in the next few months, said Hinshaw.

"(He) enjoyed skydiving tremendously," he said. The sailor also sky-dived with Pacific International Skydiving Center.

"We're just all saddened," Hinshaw said. "It's a loss that everybody feels. (He) had a lot of friends here. ... He was well liked, quiet."

A Cessna 208 plane carrying the sailor and 13 other sky divers took off about 9:05 a.m. from Dillingham Airfield yesterday. Hinshaw said the sailor dived out of the plane in a "head down" procedure when they reached jumping altitude.

But what happened after he stepped off the Cessna is unclear. There were even conflicting reports where he was found.

According to police and Emergency Medical Services, the sky diver was found on the sand, several feet away from the shoreline of Mokuleia Beach Park, about 9:35 a.m.

But Mike Fergus, a spokesman with the Federal Aviation Administration, said he was found floating in the water.

The sky diver was pronounced dead at the scene.

Hinshaw did not see what happened to the parachutist, but he said witnesses saw him deploy his main parachute.

One of the suspension lines went over the top of the parachute, causing him to spin, Hinshaw said.

But there were conflicting eyewitness accounts about what happened next.

Hinshaw said he was told the jumper may have released his main parachute and deployed his reserve parachute at about 300 to 400 feet. But Hinshaw said other witnesses saw the reserve parachute deploy right above the trees at Mokuleia Beach, or about 150 feet high.

"The result was that his reserve parachute did not have enough time to open," Hinshaw said. "He was too low for the parachute to open."

Almost all of the reserve parachute lines were out of its bag, but none of the fabric made it out, he said.

Skydive Hawaii conducts about 30,000 jumps a year. The last fatal sky-diving incident under Skydive Hawaii occurred in 1991.

Hinshaw said his friend, sky-diving instructor Bill Boyd, died when his parachute opened too soon after he climbed out of the plane.

Hinshaw said Boyd was crushed between the plane's wing and wing strut.

The company closed for business yesterday. Police and the FAA are investigating. A cross made out of small wooden branches was placed at the beach, near the airport.

The last sky-diving fatality in the islands occurred in December 2002 when Drop Zone Hawaii instructor Greg Hunter and 18-year-old Margaret Thomas, a visitor from Nebraska, were killed after their parachute failed to deploy during a tandem jump.