COURTESY OF LINDA SPENCE Navy sailor Jeremy Barrett, 24, left, died Sunday in Mokuleia in a sky-diving accident after his parachute failed to open.

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Family says sky diver
was friendly, adventurous

The Pearl Harbor sailor who died Sunday in a sky-diving accident at Mokuleia Beach was a good-natured young man with a passion for adventure, his mother said.

Navy officials identified Petty Officer 2nd Class Jeremy M. Barrett of Winfield, Iowa, yesterday as the experienced 24-year-old sky diver who died after his parachute failed to open.

Linda Spence, Barrett's mother, said sky diving became his passion from his first jump in Iowa two months after he graduated with honors from Winfield Mount Union High School in May 1999.

"I still remember his face. He was such on a natural high. I said, 'You're hooked,'" Spence said in a phone interview from Iowa. "His goal was to be a tandem jumper and take his 13-year-old sister tandem jumping when she turned 18."

Barrett, a hull technician and diver with Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One at Pearl Harbor, was found Sunday morning on the sand at Mokuleia Beach.

Barrett had made 171 jumps with Skydive Hawaii at Dillingham Airfield in Mokuleia before Sunday's jump. Frank Hinshaw, president of Skydive Hawaii, said Barrett packed his own parachute.

The sailor had set a goal to reach 200 jumps before he was to travel to Korea in March on a Navy assignment.

Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating what went wrong.

Barrett joined the Navy in September 1999. "He wanted to get out and see the world," his mother said. Barrett was stationed at Pearl Harbor since 2000 and was taking college courses.

She noted that her son had planned to purchase a home in the North Shore area with four friends to be closer to Skydive Hawaii and Kahuku Motocross Track.

"If it wasn't sky diving, he was racing motocross," she said.

Spence said her son volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters in Iowa and Hawaii. He would take children to the beach and go swimming or participate in their physical education classes, Spence said.

Barrett was active all his life, she added, noting that he had participated in wrestling and track during high school.

"He was quite an adventurous person who did a lot of things that we didn't expect, as a young child, he would have an interest in," Spence said. Barrett also made time for family and friends, she said.

Kelsey Mizeur, photographer and tandem instructor at Skydive Hawaii and a friend of Barrett, said: "He's a guy that doesn't hold back in life. He does what he wants and he does it well."

Mizeur said Barrett was level-headed and always had a smile on his face. He was also a quick learner who was excited about sky diving.

"That's the thing that made him the happiest. ... The last thing he was doing was the thing that made him smile the most," he said.

The sky diving community and members of Barrett's naval unit are planning to hold a memorial service. He will be flown to Iowa, where services will be held in his hometown.