Thanks to the insightful blog, Fear of Landing, we've discovered a fascinating story that, despite occurring in 2014, still rings true as a cautionary tale very relevant today, and its author, a pilot and aviation writer Sylvia Wrigley, kindly allowed us to repost it. It details a midair collision between a Cessna and a skydiver, captured through the incredible photography of Tim Telford. Although both the pilot and skydiver miraculously walked away with minor injuries, others have not been so fortunate. There have been 15 instances of accidents involving skydivers and airplanes that led to fatalities or serious injuries in the period from 2015 to 2023. One of the primary goals of our Visual Traffic Detection system is to enable pilots to identify non-cooperative traffic, such as birds, drones, or skydivers. We hope that one day all aircraft will offer the high levels of safety provided by such a capability.
Original post
The airport is pretty small, and there’s a two-lane highway immediately to the east lined by power lines, which you can see in the photographs. There are tall trees at the departure end of the runway, but with more than 3,000 feet of available runway, the power lines are the greater hazard until after you’ve climbed out initially. On approach to Runway 32, there are high tension lines. It feels as though you’re descending into a funnel with only one place to go. On approach to Runway 32, where the Cessna was doing touch and goes, you can go missed in a emergency by executing a right turn over the airport grounds. Otherwise, once you’re as low as the Cessna was and already rotating for a touch and go, the options are even more limited.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows:
The failure of the pilot and the parachutist to see and avoid each other, which resulted in the airplane’s wing colliding with the parachute’s suspension lines.
Even if the high wing of the 170 hadn’t blocked the vision of the pilot — and who looks for parachute traffic on rotation? — there was probably not enough time to get stopped without there being a collision. The pilot, likewise, was surely busy on the arrival over trees and power lines before setting up for the touch and go.
The parachutist likely had few options as well. New chutes are fairly maneuverable compared to old fashioned models, but there’s only so much a chutist could do under the circumstances, especially since he’d just cleared power lines behind him.