A man wearing a wingsuit fell to his death in a skydiving incident in Colorado on Saturday after both his primary and reserve parachutes failed to deploy.
Gregory Coates, 36, was skydiving near Vance Brand Airport in Longmont just before 3:30 p.m. when the tragedy occurred, according to the Boulder County Coroner’s Office.
The airport is about 40 miles north of Denver and the incident took place in the area of Nelson Road and Grandview Meadows Drive in Longmont.
Coates, who was from a mountain community near the Denver metropolitan area, was wearing a wingsuit and jumping with the Mile-Hi Skydiving Center, which is based at the airport, the Longmont Police Department said. A wingsuit skydiver wears a specialized jumpsuit with webbed sleeves and membranes between the arms, body and legs, which allows the diver to glide through the air.
According to several reports, neither Coates’s primary nor reserve parachutes opened. It is not known what level of experience he had in skydiving or what type of plane he jumped from.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was notified of the incident, but did not respond to the scene, according to Fox 17.
The skydiver was wearing a wingsuit when he fell to his death. MediaNews Group via Getty Images
The FAA told Fox News Digital it is investigating the packaging of the main and reserve parachutes and the flight rules for the pilot and aircraft. The FAA does not determine the cause of skydiving incidents, a spokesman said.
Fox News Digital requested comment from the Mile-Hi Skydiving Center but did not immediately receive a response.
A map points to Vance Brand Airport in Longmont, near where a man died in a skydiving incident Saturday. google maps
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Saturday’s deadly incident is not the first involving the Mile-Hi Skydiving Center.
In 2018, a 23-year-old man died while jumping with the company, according to Fox 17, which reports that the city has raised concerns about the company’s safety record in the past.
In 2008, a skydiving instructor and his student died after a fall while performing a tandem jump over the airport.
Most recently, a 26-year-old Boulder man died on a solo jump with the company in 2021, marking the fifth death related to Mile-Hi Skydiving since 2018, according to CBS.
The FAA says there are between 30 and 40 deaths among skydivers each year, which it calls an “extraordinarily high rate.”
The United States Parachute Association, a private sports organization, says about 4 million skydives took place in the United States last year. Of them, more than 500,000 were beginners.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn