A skydiver has died after hitting another jumper’s parachute while trying to land at a Georgia airport.
Jasmine Black, 48, died on Saturday while doing something she’s done dozens of times before. Black was an experienced skydiver with more than 160 jumps under her belt.
Late Saturday afternoon, Black was approaching the landing zone at the Thomaston Upson County Airport, over an hour’s drive south of Atlanta, when her parachute hit the parachute of another skydiver at low altitude, local Sheriff Dan Kilgore said in a Facebook post.
Black “cut away” her main parachute and tried to open her emergency parachute, according to the sheriff. But since she was at low altitude, the emergency parachute did not open.
The Federal Aviation Administration also responded and is helping with an investigation into Black’s death.
The skydiving company, Skydive Atlanta, told The Independent, “The entire skydiving community feels the weight of any loss within the sport, and this tragedy is no exception.
Skydive Atlanta extends its deepest condolences to the family, friends, and loved ones of Jasmine Black. The team is grieving alongside all those affected.”
Out of the 3.88 million reported skydives in the United States in 2024, only nine civilian deaths were reported, according to the United States Parachute Association.
The association said the “vast majority” of skydiving incidents can be linked to human error, rather than equipment failure. Out of all the skydivers in the association’s 2024 member survey, only 12.3 percent reported using a backup parachute.
Skydive Atlanta had another tragic incident in 2020 when 18-year-old Jeanna Triplicata and her skydiving instructor, Nick Esposito, 35, died on a tandem jump.
Kilgore said at the time, according to CNN, that their main parachute did not open properly and they “went into a spin.” While the emergency parachute began to open at a very low altitude, it never fully opened, the sheriff said.
Triplicata’s whole family was at the airfield and watched it unfold.
“We saw an orange-ish type of chute kind of far away, off in the distance, that was actually spinning, upside down,” her father, Joey, told 11Alive at the time. “And my wife actually turned to me and said, ‘I hope that’s not Jeanna.’”
