In an incident involving skydiving in Colorado on Saturday, a man in a wingsuit lost his life when neither his primary nor reserve parachutes opened.
Just before 3:30 p.m., Gregory Coates, 36, was skydiving close to Vance Brand Airport in Longmont when tragedy struck, according to the Boulder County Coroner’s Office. The incident happened in the vicinity of Nelson Road and Grandview Meadows Drive in Longmont, which is approximately 40 miles north of Denver.
According to the Longmont Police Department, Coates, who is from a mountain community close to the Denver metro area, was jumping with the Mile-Hi Skydiving Centre, which has its headquarters at the airport, while dressed in a wingsuit.
A wingsuit skydiver can glide through the air while wearing a customised jumpsuit with webbed sleeves and membranes separating the body, arms, and legs.
Multiple reports state that Coates’ primary and backup chutes did not open. It is unknown what kind of aircraft he jumped out of or how much experience he had in skydiving.
Fox 17 reports that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was informed of the incident but did not arrive at the scene.
According to Fox News Digital, the FAA is looking into how the pilot and aircraft should fly as well as how the main and reserve parachutes are packed. According to a spokesman, the FAA does not identify the reason behind skydiving mishaps.
The fatal event on Saturday is not the first one connected to Mile-Hi Skydiving Centre.
According to Fox 17, the city has expressed concerns regarding the company’s safety record in the past. In 2018, a man, age 23, passed away while participating in skydiving activities with the company.
2008 saw the death of a skydiving instructor and his pupil following a tandem jump over the airport from a fall.
More recently, according to CBS, a 26-year-old Boulder man died during a solo jump with the company in 2021, becoming the fifth person to die as a result of Mile-Hi Skydiving since 2018.
The FAA reports that between 30 and 40 skydivers die each year, referring to this as an “extraordinarily high rate.”
A private sports organisation called the United States Parachute Association estimates that 4 million skydives were made in the country last year. Over 500,000 of them were first-time visitors.
