Two members of the Red Line jumping team, an elite eight-member group, died on Sunday when their lines became entangled during a jump. The team was practicing for the U.S. Parachute Association national skydiving championships next month.Bill Dause, owner of the Parachute Center near Lodi in Northern California, said the men the Red Line team was jumping in close formation when the parachutes of three members became entangled.
One of the three was able to work loose of the tangle, but the other two, Barbara Cuddy, 48, and Robert Bigley, 40, could not. Both were extremely experienced, with more than 4,000 jumps each.
They were unable to deploy their backup parachutes.
Cuddy was part of a skydiving team that set a world record in 2007 with a 100-person canopy formation in Lake Wales, FL. Meanwhile, Bigley won national sky-diving titles in two formation events in 2008.
No comments:
Post a Comment