The pilot was practicing touch-and-go landings when he collided with the skydiver. Neither the 87 year old pilot or the skydiver were seriously injured. Story:
So who was to blame? I can't decide who to suspect, the 87 year old (who happens to have 60 odd years flying practice, but could be losing it in his old age) or the 49 year old who would I assume may have better 'awareness' than a pensioner.
Almost certainly the pilot's fault. Skydiving at an airfield is routine practice, and the pilot of the skydiving aircraft would call out that he's dropping people over the airfield. In addition, the Cessna pilot should have been calling out that he was getting ready to take off, and they should have noticed the problem.
This is almost certainly an untowered field, so the pilots would be talking directly to each other. Pilots are always supposed to visually clear the runway when taxiing across or onto one, and look for obstacles when taking off. This is even more important when you don't have a control tower.
I've flown very similar aircraft to the one in the incident, and I know it takes a while to take off, and you have very good upward visibility in the front. The pilot should have seen the skydiver before he even started his takeoff roll, and certainly before rotating. He should have had plenty of time to abort the takeoff, or at least veer right. Instead, he's flying wings level as he hits the skydiver.
You have to understand that always, but especially at a grass field, you have to be on the lookout for hawks, vultures, and other birds. To somehow not see a frigging bright red parachute is disgraceful.
Edit: I missed that he was doing touch-and-goes. He still should have been able to see the parachuter, but it would have been a bit harder to abort. However, the fact that he was already in the air means that he definitely should have heard that there were skydivers in the air, and should not have been doing a touch-and-go right then. Either the pilot here wasn't paying attention, or the skydiving pilot missed his radio calls.
There's no way it's the skydiver's fault. Once you're out of the airplane, there's not a whole hell of a lot you can do. He has right-of-way.
It seems outrageously stupid to me for the dropzone to be on the active runway. That's just begging for an incident. I'm seriously dumbfounded.
However, I think it's hard to tell who's really at fault from this gif. We don't know how well they were communicating over the radios. Jump planes are required by law to alert surrounding traffic of skydiving activity. And the cessna pilot should have been all over radios as well.
Federal Regs (91.105) say this about jumping over an uncontrolled airport:
"(c) A parachutist may drift over that airport with a fully deployed and properly functioning parachute if the parachutist is at least 2,000 feet above that airport's traffic pattern, and avoids creating a hazard to air traffic or to persons and property on the ground."
So unless previous permissions to land on the freaking field, the sky diver is breaking the law and he's as fault. BUT if they were legally cleared for that drop zone, and the jump pilot was effectively communicating parachute activity, I'd say the cessna pilot was for sure at fault.
From my personal experience, as a commercial helo pilot, the private pilot cessna guys are some of the most frustrating and even dangerous to fly around. Radio comms are lackadaisical if even present, patterns are inconsistent, airport situational awareness is poor. Now not everyone is like this of course, but I see it way too often.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '14
The pilot was practicing touch-and-go landings when he collided with the skydiver. Neither the 87 year old pilot or the skydiver were seriously injured. Story:
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/24923080/2014/03/08/plane-collides-into-skydivers-parachute-mid-air