A veteran skydiver was killed when she knocked into another jumper’s parachute shortly before landing, officials said.
Jasmine Black, 48, died Saturday afternoon after leaping from a plane operated by Skydive-Atlanta out of the Thomaston Upson County airport in Georgia, according to Upson County Sheriff Dan Kilgore.
Investigators said that as Black approached the landing zone, her parachute hit that of another skydiver at a low altitude.
The Locust Grove native, who had more than 160 jumps under her belt, tried to “cut away” her main parachute and deploy the emergency chute, but it failed because she was so close to the ground, Kilgore said.
When police arrived at the scene around 4:30 p.m., Black was dead on the tarmac.
The Federal Aviation Administration is also assisting with the ongoing investigation.
Of the nearly 4 million reported skydives in the US last year, nine people were killed — a record low since statistics started being kept in 1961, according to data from the United States Parachute Association.
Back-up parachutes were needed in 12.3% of skydives for the same period, and only 5.6% of skydivers needed medical treatment for injuries as a result of a jump, with the most common being hurt ankles upon landing.
Black’s death is the second fatal skydiving incident at Skydive Atlanta in the past five years.
In 2020, 18-year-old Jeanna Triplicata and 35-year-old skydiving instructor Nick Esposito were killed in a tandem jump after the pair started spinning out of control mid-air.
“Upon exiting the aircraft, the primary parachute failed to open properly and went into a spin,”Kilgore told local reporters at the time. “The emergency parachute did not deploy until extremely low altitude and did not fully open.”
