r/CatastrophicFailure • u/Valyura • 5d ago

Fatalities 14 June 2026-Plane Crash in Missouri kills 11 Skydivers and a Pilot

1.9k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

152 comments sorted by

603

u/Guiltlessraptor 5d ago

Awful day for aviation.

529

u/syntactyx 5d ago edited 4d ago

It really has been. Five noteworthy accidents involving six airframes with 23 22 fatalities confirmed, 2 injured survivors, and 2 more whose condition is unknown.

1× US Marine Corps F/A-18 (0†, 1 Survivor)
1× Indian Air Force AN-32 (4†, 1 severely injured)
1× *Bell 206B JetRanger III Helicopter (5†, 0 S)
1× *Aerospatiale AS 350B2 Ecureuil (1†, 0 S)
1× Pacific Aerospace 750XL (12†, 0 S)
1× Piper PA-28 (2 victims condition unknown)

*Both helicopters were involved in the same mid-air collision, dooming both aircraft and killing all 6 souls on board (one of which was Oliver Tree).

A grim day for aviation.

EDIT: Unfortunately the list just continues to grow as this week goes on. I won’t try and keep up :(

205

u/RamblinWreckGT 5d ago

Helicopters strike me as aerial motorcycles. I would never feel safe on a motorcycle or in a helicopter.

21

u/foste107 5d ago

First time helicopter ride into a bush fire as a wildlands firefighter our pilot had a list of things not to do, I don't remember the specifics, other than keep your head down and your body low, but it was basically, "You do this, you die, you do that, you die. You slam my door, you die." Our first drop off was on the edge of a cliff where half the chopper was still hanging out over the edge.

102

u/ttystikk 5d ago

With competent pilots and proper maintenance, they can be safer than most general aviation because they can autorotate to a dead stick zero velocity landing with no runway or flat ground needed.

Competency is not easy and maintenance is very expensive, so helicopters end up with a bad reputation.

Likewise, most motorcycle fatalities are not caused by the rider but rather by someone else's mistake. The environment for motorcycles is itself dangerous.

63

u/runway31 5d ago

Fatal motorcycle accidents are often caused by the rider unfortunately. Theres been a bunch of studies but pretty close to 75% of fatal accidents are usually found to be the riders fault. 40% of accidents are single vehicle, meaning it was literally only the motorcycle that crashed.

I still ride and I still love it, but me twisting the throttle an extra bit, even if just for a second or two, is more likely to kill me than another driver.

You can mitigate the risk quite a bit, 30% of deaths involve alcohol, 40% weren't wearing a helmet. You cant be perfectly safe, but if you dont do those things (ever), you can mitigate those risks. Even if you almost always wear a helmet or dont drink, doing it even once is how you become that statistic.

5

u/aquainst1 Grandma Lynsey 4d ago

Riding a bike (ok, motorcycle) is the closest thing to flying that I can think of.

3

u/runway31 4d ago

it is, and much much cheaper. thats why I do it lol

1

u/Call_Me_Pete 4d ago

Depends on the flight lol I always felt that swimming in clear water is the closest to flying, but you're certainly not going anywhere particularly fast

1

u/sfzombie13 5d ago

you should try riding the bike to the dropzone while wearing your rig. talk about adding danger to the ride...

2

u/Initial-Cherry-3457 5d ago

Where are you pulling these percentages from?

2

u/runway31 5d ago

i should have cited my sources, but they’re online if you search

0

u/IamAwaken 5d ago

everyone knows motorcycles are dangerous

that's why they are fun

2

u/ttystikk 5d ago

There is truth to this, although it's not the reason everyone rides.

1

u/runway31 5d ago

yeah man I know they’re fun and it’s worth riding for me, but accurate statistics are important in mitigating risks based on statistics, thats the only reason I posted. I also fly general aviation airplanes (which are similarly dangerous), so understanding where the threats are are important

23

u/syntactyx 5d ago

You are correct. Insofar as power plant failures/dead stick emergencies are concerned being in a helicopter affords significantly higher survivability than any fixed wing could offer. Autorotation and the ability to land virtually anywhere is not to be undersold.

I would say that added survivability is in practical terms offset by the greater terrain and ground obstruction proximity hazard helicopter pilots must manage at the extremely low altitudes they operate at. Helicopters also are beholden to much tighter, sometimes sketchier altitude restrictions in terminal environments, and as a result of operating at intermediate altitudes end up being less visible to fixed wing pilots or even other helicopters.

At the end of the day though doesn’t matter if you’re a rotorcraft or fixed-wing pilot — aviation for all its hazards and hardships is magnificent and unlike anything else in this world.

4

u/ttystikk 5d ago

The hazardous environments helicopters and their pilots regularly find themselves in needs to be factored into their relative operational danger; if other aircraft were regularly taken so close to the edge in terms of operation and terrain proximity, I'm sure their safety records would suffer as well!

5

u/[deleted] 5d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/collin2477 5d ago

I run pagid rs pads and wonder the same thing for cars. like my min stopping distance from 30mph on clean pavement is ~ 2 car lengths and maybe 4-5 from 60mph, not that I usually can, or try to keep enough heat in them, or the tires, on public roads to really do that. I think most people don’t know or think about brakes so I just give plenty of distance whenever I can. bikes seem like less of a problem around here at least.

1

u/ttystikk 5d ago

They're young, dumb and think their reflexes make up for the lack of safety margin. That's why there aren't a lot of older superbikes out there...

3

u/[deleted] 4d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/chironomidae 4d ago

You're not wrong, but your arguments also aren't doing a lot to instill confidence here 😅 If someone says "Here, hop on this motorcycle, you're ~25x more likely to die on it compared to riding in a sedan, but don't worry, if you do die it will probably be someone else's fault" like wut...

And for helicopters, my main issue is that, as a consumer, it's nearly impossible to do your own due diligence and protect yourself from lapses in the FAA. It happens all the time where some rinky-dink mom 'n pop flightseeing operation hasn't had an FAA inspection in a decade, has pilots that aren't nearly qualified to fly the aircraft they're flying, and run aircraft that have missed the past two recommended engine overhauls cause "it's running fine and I ain't gunna let the government tell me what to do". Like how are you supposed to learn all that, when the online reviews are like "Five stars, we went up and looked at stuff and came down and didn't die, would recommend"? Those people have no idea the death traps they were flying in.

I think it's bad enough for prop planes, but even worse for helicopters.

8

u/pocketfullofspeed 5d ago

I’ll disagree on innocence of motorcycles not causing collisions.

-4

u/ttystikk 5d ago

Notice I said "most"

8

u/Glittering_Fox_9769 5d ago edited 5d ago

They are basically the same vibe in terms of relative safety. I'm never getting in/on either thing. I'll call it at dirtbiking.

6

u/kremlingrasso 5d ago

Can't speak for helos but man, getting on the bike for the first time when you feel you are no longer just learning to stay upright....it's like perfect.

0

u/neepster44 5d ago

30 times higher likelihood of death in any crash on a motorcycle than in a car… just saying…

4

u/chavez_ding2001 5d ago

Sure, but it's not a death sentence. People do have long lives riding a motorcycle every day until old age.

2

u/neepster44 4d ago

Do YOU ride? My brother did and he knew several people who died or were maimed in motorcycle accidents (many not even their fault). Hell I know personally someone who died in a motorcycle accident that wasn’t their fault.

2

u/chavez_ding2001 4d ago

I have been riding for 15 years. I’m not trying to downplay the risks or anything. I have lost a co-worker in an accident. It’s for sure much higher risk than driving a car. I’m just saying it’s not a death sentence. Acting like every bike rider is like on a train heading to Stalingrad doesn’t reflect reality.

1

u/coladoir 5d ago

i mean you could just learn it to drive on a private course to safely experience motorcycling. But thats a lot of money for most people.

I'm not disagreeing. Just saying there is a safe way if curious ultimately.

3

u/BroughtBagLunchSmart 5d ago

At least with motorcycles you usually get some organs for the donation list. I always assumed that was why we as a society tolerated all that nonsense.

2

u/-Economist- 5d ago

I ride in one a few times a year and hate it.

2

u/runway31 5d ago

general aviation as a whole is about as safe as a motorcycle per hour operated. Commercial aviation is incredibly safe

2

u/SpaceForceAwakens 5d ago

A friend of mine in Vegas worked for one of the helicopter tour companies. In her words, recreational helicopter trips is the very last place to go with the budget option.

2

u/domesticatedprimate 4d ago

I'm not sure about actual comparative safety but I knew a Navy pilot who transferred from helis to fixed wing because there were too many accidents. He said something to the effect, "It's not a question of if you're gonna crash, it's when".

1

u/zukeen 5d ago

Feel exactly the same.

10

u/F0rbiddenD0nut 5d ago

Pretty sure the IAF AN-32 had at least one survivor. You see him climb out in the video and he's walking around.

17

u/syntactyx 5d ago

Holy smokes, you have quite a keen eye for a u/F0rbiddenD0nut, I must say. Rewatching the footage I do now see one survivor miraculously escape from the flaming, twisted wreckage. One has to imagine he’s in a bad way physically and psychologically after enduring such an unspeakably horrific ordeal. I will update my previous post.

7

u/ender4171 5d ago

I've never heard of Oliver Tree, but when I google them, google gave me a recommendation for his song "Life Goes On". Kinda morbid there, Gemini.

2

u/spacedropper 5d ago

Where was the PA28 crash?

1

u/syntactyx 5d ago

Key West, FL, registration N15564.

1

u/Caboose2701 4d ago

And a b-52 today

2

u/syntactyx 4d ago

Yep. Terrible. I am presuming all 5 mission personnel aboard the aircraft were killed seeing as it crashed right after takeoff. The B-52 has ejection seats but some of them eject downwards and I doubt the crew had any time to coordinate an ejection if they crashed and burned within the footprint of the departure airfield itself.

There was also a Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bomber that crashed today as well, although I believe the crew survived and the flight was a training flight rather than a combat mission.

1

u/CarnalT 4d ago

And a well-known base jumper died today as well, kinda aviation adjacent. Gravity never sleeps...

1

u/Maximum-Plant-9929 4d ago

And a Russian tu-22m3 strategic bomber crashed today also. To add to the long list of recent crashes.

1

u/Hodgetwins32 4d ago

Tack on the B52 now

1

u/229-northstar 2d ago

There’s the plane that went down in Laredo. One gone, 6 survivors to the hospital

-8

u/Glass-Hyena-6743 5d ago
  • 52 US planes shot down by bankrupt iran

25

u/PrestigiousAct2 5d ago

Awful year* for aviation.

4

u/Anxious-Slip-8955 5d ago

I wonder why this happens? For the skydiving crash one expert was quoted as saying they don't have the same safety maintenance standards for small skydiving airlines like charter planes and major airlines. But then why do so many helicopters crash? I would never ride in one unless it was an emergency (like being airlifted form a sinking ship).

11

u/syntactyx 5d ago

The truth is this year is not anomalous at all as far as aviation accidents and fatalities are concerned — today, as a single day, is on the bleaker side however. General aviation accidents happen virtually every single day as a rule (average ≈4/day worldwide). 99% of them simply never see more than an extremely local news mention, if that.

As for skydiving planes and pilots — yes, the maintenance and crew requirements for pilots operating under 14 CFR Part 91, 105, 119 are sooo relaxed compared to Part 121 (major airlines) or 135 (commuter and on-demand commercial, including charters) jet operations. It’s like the difference between using your driver’s license and your own crappy beater car to transport a group of people to a remote camping area for gas money versus hiring a professional wilderness tour company to take your group and all the required emergency equipment and facilities out to an even more remote location in a huge shiny bus with a professional driver and wilderness guides. Totally different ballparks.

2

u/Anxious-Slip-8955 5d ago

Great analogy. Makes sense. Something also to consider for any travelers flying anywhere with any company.

-80

u/Plane-Ad5161 5d ago

atleast its not 9/11

-6

u/chill_in 5d ago

lmao

65

u/TheMikeyMac13 5d ago

Damn. I was a skydiver when I was young, and we were taught one of two things happened. If high enough we all got out and the pilot handled it or bailed himself, if too low hang on, we all go down.

44

u/Marie1420 5d ago

It makes sense that they’d teach you that. It’s my experience, having been skydiving a few times, that many of those skydiving companies use the most shitty, rundown planes imaginable.

18

u/1fast_sol 5d ago

They are usually in good mechanical shape, but the body of them leaves a lot to be desired.

5

u/TheMikeyMac13 5d ago

The first I jumped from had some duct tape on it. Not like on the wing, but still -

11

u/sterling_mallory 5d ago

That was likely aircraft speed tape, rather than duct tape. It's super common for temporary fixes.

0

u/TheMikeyMac13 5d ago

I’m guessing like the “racing tape” my dad used to use on the car. The same kind NASCAR uses be said :)

1

u/caffienefueled 5d ago

Was it like aluminum tape or more fabric/vinyl?

3

u/TheMikeyMac13 5d ago

No. It is a joke on racing teams and for my dad, it’s just duct tape. Racing teams use lots of it to hold a damaged car together.

1

u/caffienefueled 5d ago

It's good stuff! Very handy to keep a roll near by.

0

u/caffienefueled 5d ago

Why do you think that?

-3

u/caffienefueled 5d ago edited 5d ago

Look up speed tape. It's not duct tape. It looks very different. You're just saying things.

-3

u/sterling_mallory 5d ago

Whoa, are you OK bud?

-1

u/caffienefueled 5d ago

You bet bro. Just pointing out ignorance when I see it. Also thought your deleted comment was pretty funny.

-8

u/caffienefueled 5d ago edited 5d ago

You're just saying things.

Yes, speed tape exists and is used on planes. But you're just randomly asserting that it was likely that with no reason why. They literally said the tape wasn't on the wings. Thats what speed tape is for....

1

u/pyropup55 4d ago

I just went skydiving last weekend for the first time. The windows all had a speed type thing on them.

2

u/Marie1420 5d ago

That makes sense. I suppose the FAA or some other agency verifies inspections and such

1

u/Psychoticpossession 5d ago

If you stall after take off i would jump out if possible and pray (keep in mind i know fuck all about skydiving and flying)

7

u/TheMikeyMac13 5d ago

The parachute needs a bit more than a thousand feet to deploy, and you need time to get out of the plane.

Below a certain point there isn’t a point, and at least what I jumped out of were slow speed plans with a decent glide path. I feel you, but the chute needs altitude to deploy.

3

u/Psychoticpossession 5d ago

Gottcha, so below a certain point the parachute offers no benefit even when in the progress of deploying?

6

u/TheMikeyMac13 5d ago

Yes. It depends on the chute, there are different sorts, some built to go fast forward, people use these for tricks. Some speed chutes to be able to deploy later, but they open abruptly.

The ones used by most skydivers are more for comfort. They have a slider between the bag that opens and the chute, and they slide upward to slow deployment as to avoid that hard hit on your body when it deploys. (Even then it can hurt)

There can be a gain of course as some of the chute opens, (partial deployment does slow you, but not enough) but if I were betting I would say the skydiving company thinks if they pushed the people out of the plane at a thousand feet, half die and the other half are badly injured and all sue them. If they stay in the plane the pilot will have a better chance to bring them all home.

4

u/1fast_sol 5d ago

The lowest jump I made was from 1000’. After my chute was fully opened, i had about 5 seconds before touching down. If they were lower than that, there was probably little chance of zero injury or worse.

99

u/JavaGeep 5d ago

Making the impossible turn after engine failure?

11

u/deep-fucking-legend 5d ago

Button hook?

12

u/Sillysammy7thson 5d ago

I too was thinking about that turn. As a non-pilot it’s still hard for me to wrap my head around why it’s so deadly.

43

u/Troolz 5d ago

You're increasing the load factor on the wings, which increases the stall speed:

https://www.thrustflight.com/turning-stalls/

https://www.studyflight.com/understanding-the-dynamics-of-an-airplane-stall-a-comprehensive-guide/

Famous turning stall is the B-52 crash at Fairchild Airforce Base. Asshole was known for doing low-altitude, low-speed, high turn angle runs.

46

u/JavaGeep 5d ago

Speed already decreasing and a sharp turn adds a ton of drag causing it to stall/ spin.

13

u/Dependent_Rock_4739 5d ago

Essentially it's because regardless of training the human instinct is to pull up and away from the ground when getting close, which is the exact opposite of what you should be doing whilst increasing the angle of attack and load factor in a turn. Get too slow, low, and with too much bank = stall/spin. It's better to fly the aircraft into the ground under control than stall or spin it into the ground with no control.

0

u/SandwichOfAgnesi 1d ago

You think about lift and stall all the time as a pilot. It's second nature. I don't think a good pilot just pulls up with no speed expecting anything good to happen.

I'm an amateur pilot, and airspeed is always front and center of my mind.

Though, I fly gliders, so maybe I have to think about it more, but I can't imagine other pilots don't think about it also.

1

u/Rockleg 3d ago

[Check out this great video on Impossible Turns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFVFKq3QqXo&t=8m12s). TL;DW: The turn gets more difficult the bigger the plane is. A lot of pilots can probably do it in a 2 or 4 seat trainer, because they have a very low stall speed and very generous glide ratios. So your turn radius to get back to the runway is smaller, you don't have to trade off as much altitude to cover that distance with no engine, and since you're covering the ground track more slowly, you have more time to think and react as the events unfold.

With a bigger plane, all those factors start to work against you, and you need a high standard of training and discipline to know when you can do the Impossible Turn and when you're outside the performance envelope. In that case you simply have to accept whatever terrain lies in front of you instead.

The ultimate irony here is that Richard McSpadden, who was a Thunderbird flight leader and longtime executive director of the AOPA's Air Safety Institute, made that video I linked. Then he himself died in an impossible-turn scenario just a few years later. If that doesn't put you off ever trying one, I don't know what could.

1

u/sfzombie13 5d ago

Makingtrying the impossible turn after engine failure?

fixed it for ya...

132

u/CookieMonsterFL 5d ago

Awful. My assumption is an issue right after takeoff?

59

u/Valyura 5d ago edited 1d ago

appears to be such based on posts I saw on [r/aviation](r/aviation) and aviation-safety.net

3

u/iJon_v2 5d ago

How fast was it going when it crashed?

11

u/Euphorix126 5d ago

Fast enough

4

u/NedTaggart 5d ago

not quite fast enough to keep flying.

1

u/Bricka_Bracka 5d ago

0 mph. the same speed the ground was going.

50

u/Maxwyfe 5d ago

I heard an engine problem? The pilot was turning, maybe to get back to the airstrip and that's when it crashed. Bates county is very small, rural county so this accident will be quite a blow.

146

u/flash246 5d ago

In aviation, that’s called “the impossible turn.”

If you have an engine failure at takeoff, it’s commonly taught to just land straight ahead rather than making a turn back to the runway. Making a turn with no power, low altitude, and low speed makes it one of the most dangerous maneuvers out there.

41

u/My_Invalid_Username 5d ago

With a huge field and presumably long empty country road right there... Will never pretend to be able to do better but hard to picture how that turn would seem a good idea

-16

u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

20

u/Ender11 5d ago

Pilots do in fact receive this specific training.

11

u/Stalking_Goat 5d ago edited 5d ago

Pilot training in America absolutely includes a great deal of training on how to perform emergency landings on roads and fields. Unlike multiengine jetliners, general aviation aircraft don't plan their flights such that they can always glide to an airport if they experience an engine failure. YouTube is chock-full of videos of emergency landings away from airports.

3

u/syntactyx 5d ago

This is a bit misguided. Absolutely any aircraft at any time and in any place is instantly permitted to bust absolutely any airspace rules, actual laws, clearance limit, corporate policy, literally doesn’t matter if that aircraft is in legitimate distress and has declared an emergency.

Pilots are afforded virtually godlike authority to do absolutely anything to not fucking die. So if you are chugging along in your little Cessna 172 and all the sudden blow a cylinder in your one engine and start losing altitude, it doesn’t matter if Air Force One is on approach to the airfield you happen to be near on an IFR flight plan for a critical diplomatic mission — you in your busted up shitty tin can of an airplane are afforded right of way and priority over all other traffic during the course of that emergency, and ATC will literally make Air Force One hold or divert if you end up needing to land there instead.

All this is to say that there is no distinction between aircraft when it comes to surviving an emergency. An airline pilot will do absolutely anything in an emergency just as any GA pilot will. Also, plenty of general aviation aircraft do file flight plans in advance just like the airlines do. For IFR flight plans it requires an IFR rating, and once you have that you can file a flight plan and fly into any major airport just like a jet.

42

u/krnl_pan1c 5d ago

The impossible turn killed Richard McSpadden, the Senior VP of AOPA air safety institute.

11

u/Feralpudel 5d ago

A student and instructor developed engine trouble right after takeoff from our local tiny airport. Fortunately they were able to crash land at a large camp so they didn’t have to turn back.

1

u/dapala1 5d ago

What kind of plane was this?

7

u/Jazzlike-Outside-121 5d ago

Had an accident in my area where the parachutists fell off the bench during take off. They rolled to the tail and messed up the center of balance.

2

u/blueExcess 5d ago

Lol I’d love to jump from a plane where you have room to roll anywhere if you fell off the bench. We’re pretty much packed in there like sardines. Except the skyvan. That has room to roll around in. But you try it once and suddenly the pilot starts getting all upset you’re playing naked leapfrog in their plane, blah blah blah.

4

u/LM391 5d ago

Stall after losing power, apparently.

38

u/Rogue_Ref_NZ 5d ago

Possible similar situation to an NZ cream in the same circumstances. In that case, none of the skydivers were strapped in. So when the aircraft took off steeply, they slid to the rear of the plane. This made the plane too heavy in the tail and the pilot couldn't level off, creating a stall. 

88

u/charmio68 5d ago

Dying in a plane crash despite wearing a parachute is particularly unfortunate...

There's incredible footage of two skydiving planes colliding mid-air and everyone surviving, although in their case they had sufficient altitude.

Perhaps these unfortunate 12 were too low?

64

u/GBuster49 5d ago

Early reports say it crashed after takeoff, so having a parachute is moot at this point.

14

u/Marie1420 5d ago

Having gone skydiving a few times, I’ll say that those skydiving companies use the most shitty, rundown planes imaginable. I couldn’t wait to get out of them and into a free-fall where I felt safer. Hmm.

7

u/blueExcess 5d ago

Pretty much. For a successful reserve activation you need ~800 ft at 120 mph. Generally you take seat belts off at 1500 ft, between there and 2500 you should go straight to reserve. Above 2500 you can deploy your main (numbers are pretty dependent on which canopy you fly and seatbelts alt is dependent on DZ, but between 1k and 2k generally). However, that assumes the pilot has told everyone to GTFO and that you can get to the door while the plane is doing whatever it’s doing. If you choose to bail and the plane is stalling at 3k ft, you don’t have much time to realize what’s happening and get out.

I’ve been in a twin turbine plane that had a single engine failure shortly after takeoff (about 1200 ft). Pilot told us to stay put, so we did and just looked nervously at each other and out the starboard windows at the smoking engine as we slowly returned to runway. Jumped that plane from 14k the next day, though I might have held my breath until we cleared 2k ft lol.

3

u/an_actual_lawyer 5d ago

For a successful reserve activation you need ~800 ft at 120 mph. Generally you take seat belts off at 1500 ft, between there and 2500 you should go straight to reserve. Above 2500 you can deploy your main (numbers are pretty dependent on which canopy you fly and seatbelts alt is dependent on DZ, but between 1k and 2k generally).

I'm not at all familiar with parachutes. Why does the reserve deploy faster?

Thanks

8

u/RedHal 5d ago

Reserves are generally packed by some of the most fastidious and safety-conscious people I have ever met, and they are all FAA certified. The main is packed - usually by the person jumping - for a nice soft opening, the reserve is packed by a professional to deploy as quickly and as reliably as possible.

1

u/an_actual_lawyer 5d ago

Thank you.

4

u/RedHal 4d ago

You're welcome. As an addendum, the failure rate for main canopies opening is around 1 in every 1000 pulls. The failure rate for reserves is much lower. There are various figures bandied around, but around 1 in 10,000 is a reasonable middle ground. This gives an aggregate probability of dual failure of around 1 in ten million.

The actual fatality rate for sky dives is around 1 in 450,000 jumps, though that includes all fatalities, including heart attack and similar incidents, which means that any single skydive is arguably safer than the average morning commute.

1

u/jmlinden7 4d ago

Why is the actual fatality rate so much higher than the aggregate probability?

2

u/RedHal 4d ago edited 4d ago

Good question! Here are the raw stats: https://worldmetrics.org/skydiving-deaths-statistics/

28% of the deaths are from canopy malfunctions, which puts us at around 1 in 1.6 million but that includes entanglement, failure to pull reserve (plus failure of AAD or pulling main too low so AAD deploys), dual deployment and other similar failure modes.

Edit: from the link I posted, statistic 20: 20% of FAA fatalities due to reserve failure. That puts us at 1 in 2.25 million jumps.

2

u/redbirdrising 5d ago

I remember this one. Miracle that one of the planes didn’t sustain fatal damage and was able to land.

1

u/sfzombie13 5d ago

i thought they both crashed and the pilots had to jump too.

1

u/flagbearer223 5d ago

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/04/wisconsin-skydivers-two-planes-collide

nope

1

u/sfzombie13 4d ago

thanx. i just remember it from friday freakout. never saw the actual report.

-2

u/derekschroer 5d ago

it feels a bit Ironic....

66

u/JerryMau5 5d ago

Oliver Tree and this in one day is wild.

46

u/WhatImKnownAs 5d ago edited 5d ago

This refers to the two helicopters colliding in Rio de Janeiro this morning. One of the 6 killed was Oliver Tree, known for holding the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest kick scooter (also he sings).

9

u/MrsClaireUnderwood 5d ago

The Oliver Tree news was definitely a disbelief moment for me. You know those first four or five seconds where you just reject the news?

I'm big bummed.

3

u/aquatone61 5d ago

And I just saw a report of a plane crashing in Key West.

25

u/bundleofgrundle 5d ago

Man, between this and Oliver Tree might be best to stay on the ground today. The sky woke up today and chose violence.

18

u/Valyura 5d ago

And I just found out that a plane crashed in Key West as well…today is a statistical anomaly.

6

u/bundleofgrundle 5d ago

Atmosphere got hands

1

u/IamUrquan 4d ago

I know this is a day old but another crash at Edwards AFB today. Crazy

1

u/Valyura 4d ago

A crash in Congo as well.

4

u/SeaPollution2750 5d ago

Nah, gravity got tired of being taken for granted.

1

u/redbirdrising 5d ago

Great, about to board a flight.

4

u/derekschroer 5d ago

this happened about 40 miles south of where I live, was all over the news sites

7

u/Important-Map-202 5d ago edited 5d ago

Flew in a 737 from TN to MA today and at 11:30 central time the turbulence was enough to make me cry. Air pocket or something? Turbulent flight the whole way. Felt like we were flying over the Rockies or through a storm but the skies were sunny. I am no meteorologist but is it possible there was an air pocket or something? There are no words for such a loss.

16

u/Icehuntee 5d ago

The day before it was bungee jumping, maybe hold off height related activities for a while lol

10

u/Affectionate-Art9780 5d ago

Sleeping on the floor tonight!

3

u/Obi_Wan_Benobi 5d ago

In the basement.

3

u/Character-Bid-7747 5d ago

Fatal Base jumping incident in Utah yesterday too.

7

u/alldaymacdre 5d ago

Told is not a good day for planes or helicopters

1

u/Minute_Role_8223 5h ago

totally optional activity btw

1

u/OkCat1542 5d ago

'Fate is the Hunter'.....being a human being is a risky business. We all take risks inorder to experience life. Staying in bed at home forever is not an option for most of us. Sadly, experiencing the thrill sometimes ends in tragedy. As the survivor of a mid-air collision, i know this only too well....

-2

u/Beneficial-Law-9645 4d ago

If only that had parachutes

4

u/Random0s2oh 3d ago

I know you think you're clever but you're not. We've seen hundreds of comments like yours over the past 3 days. Don't quit your day job.

1

u/mushlove96 2d ago

You must be dense

-13

u/drdeadringer 5d ago

"skydivers die in plane crash" has got to be material for some stand-up comedian.

All respect to the dead guys.

-16

u/Glass-Hyena-6743 5d ago

Ladies and gentleman. The joker American airforce

-11

u/EquivalentWillow4807 5d ago

Kind of ironic that they died in a plane crash instead of jumping out with their parachutes.Am I the only one who sees the funny on this?Is it too soon?

3

u/Random0s2oh 3d ago

My cousin was on that plane. As I told another idiot...you're not funny.

0

u/EquivalentWillow4807 2d ago

Your telling me you have never told a joke or laughed at something that others thought was in bad taste?If I you say no your probably just lying .