Deland Airport Accident

[AviatrixMorgan]

I work at an FBO in DAB and one of the line guys here has a brother who is a line guy over in DeLand. He was working when this happened and got a view of it first hand. He was fueling when he heard a thud on his truck. Looked to see one of the legs and blood all over. Needless to say, he was quite shaken up over it all.

 

[FN FAL]

I was with a student doing practice approaches and ATC kept us above 2,500' on the VOR 23 due to the accident.

I've been in the pattern at DED and skyidvers have crossed the active runway while taking off or on short final. I've also seen jumpers on days when they must have done some pretty amazing maneuvers to stay out of the clouds on the way down.

I will no longer do pattern work at DED during the day.

So you will fly there with an assumption there are no such thing as night jump operations?

I have gone past more light planes in free fall in the last few years...don't know if it's just more traffic or more pilots not looking at charts before they go flying.

Last summer I was making a skydive...deployed at 2,500 feet like a good boy and was in the saddle by 2,000 or so. As I reach for my steering toggles, I hear a plane...I look dead in front of me and it's head on. I could even see the guy's face...he makes a hard turn and I'm giving him both fingers and screaming ever dirty word in the book at him. He had this stupid WTF? look on his face...and probably a unexpected hot carl in his pants. The DZO and the other jumpers saw this happen and after I told em my part of the story, the DZO just said, "Good, we don't have to worry about him flying by the airport anymore!"

The summer before last I was doing a two way and training that person in some relative work...a camera man was on our dive filming the training. We caught this one on video. My student freefalling past the plane and me deploying at the planes altitude. You should have dumb look on that guys face. The camera man didn't see the plane until I told him to put the video from the camera on and play it. Right when the camera man deployed, you freeze frame the video, and there it is...a big white low wing piper.

Several summers ago, I was doing some training on another two way...used a borrowed rig. Borrowed gear KILLS! The pilot chute came out of the leg mounted pouch (I strictly use B.O.C. now!) at 10,000 feet. While I was sitting there wondering what the heck happened...a big G-IV or V passed beneath me...it had big engines on it, like a high bypass turbofan. The eery part was how quiet this plane was as it flew beneath me by 100 feet...passed right between my legs....I just waved at those jokers.

Anyhooo...those two rayban wearing dorks looked pretty confused as well. They were out of Appleton and were on a maint flight...never checked on with center or Green Bay approach. After the jump pilot called the tower at Appleton and got us a tail number, I made a to call to the ATW FBO and found out who the plane belonged to, got the phone number of the aircraft's flight department and left a message with their flight department secretary. I didn't say anything mean, but I did advise her that we're on the chart and that we primarily jump on wed and fri afternoons and that we jump all day sat, sun and holidays...wx permiting. I also left a number where I could be reached if they had any questions. It's all about making people aware...not always about getting an ass chewing session underway.

Here's an even better one. Rember when Air Willy had the BAT Plane...the BAE ATP? One saturday I make the call to Green Bay that I'm one minute from dropping jumpers from 12,000. They tell me the coast is clear...I call door! And the jumpers are outside and gone! I banked the plane to wach the jumpers fall away and right directly over the airport on the deck is this big freaking twin turboprop airliner.

Green Bay gets a call from the plane and they ask, "Skydivers? Where are the skydivers?!!!?" Green bay asks me if I dropped the jumpers and I said they are long gone. Green bay calls them and said, "The jumpers are falling right on top of you!" It was a maint flight and they were out there dinking around...Green Bay has great radar...so these guys must have been pretty low.

Now that EAA is coming, I'm getting a sick feeling in my stomach thinking about all these dorks flying over our airport without a clue. I usually skip that week for skydiving, but it's inevitable that I will wind up flying several loads. You see lots of cool stuff that week, like heards of T-6 texans flying in formation and occaisionally a YAK round engine traininer will land and buy some fuel...but what I really hate is those guys that dont look at a sectional and fly right over our airport. Is this year going to be the year one of these guys makes the paper crashing to or from EAA, because they got struck by a skydiver? I hope not.

 

[moxiepilot]

Based on your current track record so far this post, I have the inclination to doubt this one. Sorry dude, but you apparently didn't research your claims.

You'll have to excuse me and accept my apology, my research was at midnight after flying all day, however in response to the near hit on the rwy with the jump truck - that was with me and could be verified by Capt Nick Alleyene who now flys for Jet Blue and was the capt of that flight.

I just hate DED - too busy and too many morons coming out of RAA

 

[surfnole]

So, is it safe to assume the pilot is at fault? Skydivers don't have any maneuverability, so shoudn't the plane "see and avoid". At 600 feet, I would also assume the skydiver had his chute deployed.

 

[USMCmech]

So, is it safe to assume the pilot is at fault?

In a word, NO!


Nobody here knows exactly what happened. By all acounts both the Otter pilot and the skydiver were very safety concious, with tons of experiance.

The skydiver does have right of way, but skydivers should also keep clear of the traffic pattern.

I've flown jumpers before and it is a fun job, but there are very real risks involved. Avoiding a midaitr with the jumers was always on my mind. I flew my descent far enough away that they shoud have no problem staying clear.

That said, they can be very hard to see. Even when under canopy. They can easilly descend into your flight path. If both parties are headed in the same direction, that sets the stage for a classic "overtaking/descending" midair. IIRC this is the most common midair scenerio for all aircraft.

 

[EDUC8-or]

So you will fly there with an assumption there are no such thing as night jump operations?

No, but generally the pattern in Deland isn't so busy at night and I personally can't remember the last time I heard "Jumpers Away!" after dark-thirty.

Here's a question for you jumpers out there: How much room is "enough" when diverting around an airport with skydiving ops? When you exit the jump plane, where are you in reference to the airport? Does it depend on winds, etc...? I want to be cautious and I also want to teach my students to give you guys lots of room.

 

[USMCmech]

Here's a question for you jumpers out there: How much room is "enough" when diverting around an airport with skydiving ops? When you exit the jump plane, where are you in reference to the airport? Does it depend on winds, etc...?

I always made my jump runs into the wind. I would useually open the door about .3nm from the DZ and would always have all the jumpers out befor I was 1nm upwind.


If you stay at least 3-5 nm away, you're fine in most cases.

 

[b82rez]

Deland has never been known as one of the most safety conscious places for skydiving operations. I've personally seen them jump when there was an overcast over the field, around 3 thousand overcast. Also, it seems the Otter pilots always have to "beat" the jumpers down. They are usually in such a hurry, I can easily believe they would be a danger to both jumpers and other planes....flame away.

 

[DiverDriver]

Deland has never been known as one of the most safety conscious places for skydiving operations. I've personally seen them jump when there was an overcast over the field, around 3 thousand overcast. Also, it seems the Otter pilots always have to "beat" the jumpers down. They are usually in such a hurry, I can easily believe they would be a danger to both jumpers and other planes....flame away.

Otter pilots don't have to beat the jumpers down. We do it quite naturally. The otter can descend at about 6,000 fpm. At the DZ I flew at I could carry that right down to about 600 AGL and level out, slow to flap speed, land on the numbers without ever bringing in the power and beat most of the tandems down. On very good days I would be on my takeoff roll while the last tandem was landing. That was CRANKING loads.

Like any aviation activity there must be traffic patterns established to keep dis-similar traffic apart. We don't know who was out of position on this accident but someone was.

It's a tough thing to lose a legend in the sport. Imagine if Chuck Yeager had gone in because of a midair and the other one flying the airplane was Charles Lindbergh. Get my view?

If you want to know more about flying skydivers check out www.DiverDriver.com. It is a free education website for those wanting to know more about "diver driving". It has a training syllabus outline, questionare, advice on specific aircraft, and lists most known jump plane accidents.

 

[b82rez]

Otter pilots don't have to beat the jumpers down. We do it quite naturally. The otter can descend at about 6,000 fpm. At the DZ I flew at I could carry that right down to about 600 AGL and level out, slow to flap speed, land on the numbers without ever bringing in the power and beat most of the tandems down. On very good days I would be on my takeoff roll while the last tandem was landing. That was CRANKING loads.

I appreciate your response. My one point would be that even though the otter can do that "naturally", there are many times a descent and landing like that will be hazardous to others; such as if there are other people in the pattern. At DED (at least 6 years ago which was the last time I was there), this operation would be carried out regardless of other operations. That's why I said it seems like they have to beat the jumpers down.

It is very sad that this has happened, that being said.... I have witnessed jump operations at Deland that, in my limited scope opinion, were severely not in the best interests of safety for both jumpers and aircraft. Hopefully this incident will bring attention to that and help to shift the paradigm.