A skydiver died Saturday when he fell to the ground during a competition at the Perris Valley Skydiving Facility in Perris, according to the Riverside coroner's office.
Sean Carey, 35, of San Diego, was performing a solo maneuver when he crashed at about 9:10 a.m. He was treated at the scene and transported to Riverside County Regional Medical Center where he was pronounced dead ten minutes later.
The Press-Enterprise reported in December that the Perris Valley facility had already seen five fatalities in 2011. Carey was the sixth fatality in little over a year.
In December, an experienced 32 year-old Canadian skydiver died from a hard landing at Perris Valley. Earlier last year, four people died and one person was seriously injured in three separate skydiving incidents at the airport.
There have been a total of 14 deaths at the facility since 2000.
Skydiver who died was ''swooping'' expert
''He was one of the most experienced canopy pilots in the country.''
A 35-year-old San Diego man who was considered one of the most specialized skydivers in the country died during a competition in Riverside County this weekend, authorities said.
Sean Carey was performing an advanced maneuver in the air at Skydive Perris shortly after 9 a.m. Saturday, when he slammed into a pond, according to Riverside sheriff’s, coroner’s officials and a skydiving-facility manager who was at the scene.
Carey, an instructor at Skydive San Diego, was performing an experienced piloting move called "swooping," in which a skydiver accelerates toward the ground then travels closely toward a small pond at a high rate of speed. The goal is to level off, drag one's feet in the pond and go as far as possible, skydiving experts told U-T San Diego.
The discipline, also known as canopy piloting, can push people to travel up to 60 miles an hour, said Buzz Fink, president of Skydive San Diego.
"He was one of the most experienced canopy pilots in the country," said Fink, who was not at the competition but spoke to people who were there.
Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld, the manager of Skydive Perris, did see the incident. He said Carey's parachute and equipment worked fine. The problem: "He accelerated to the pond too low and didn't come out of the acceleration quickly enough," Brodsky-Chenfeld said. "He hit the pond at a high rate."
Paramedics were sent to the skydiving center on Goetz Road, near the Perris Airport, to aid an injured skydiver, sheriff’s officials said. They took Carey to Riverside County Regional Medical Center, where he died at 9:52 a.m.
Carey, who also trained military personnel in skydiving, won a similar swooping competition a couple of months earlier, said Fink of Skydive San Diego. Carey had recorded 1,800 jumps per year for the last three years.
"It's going to take us a long time to get over the loss," Fink said.
Swooping is considered an advanced skill in the world of skydiving. The practice was briefly shut down in late 2011 in Perris after a man died trying the move. That person did not die during a competition. The skydiving facility then tightened its regulations to ensure only the most experienced skydivers could perform the maneuver, said Brodsky-Chenfeld, of Skydive Perris.
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