Tuesday, June 09, 2020

de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter, N190KM: Fatal accident occurred June 06, 2020 at Chester Catawba Regional Airport (KDCM), Chester County, South Carolina

Federal Aviation Administration / Flight Standards District Office; Columbia, South Carolina

Aircraft landed, skydiver missed landing zone and collided with aircraft while taxiing.

Airstar Aviation Inc

https://registry.faa.gov/N190KM

Date: 06-JUN-20
Time: 23:00:00Z
Regis#: N190KM
Aircraft Make: DEHAVILLAND
Aircraft Model: DHC6
Event Type: ACCIDENT
Highest Injury: FATAL
Total Fatal: 1
Aircraft Missing: No
Damage: UNKNOWN
Activity: SKYDIVING
Flight Phase: TAXI (TXI)
Operation: 91
City: CHESTER
State: SOUTH CAROLINA

5 comments:

  1. Skydive company operates the Otter. Terrible mishap for the jumper and pilot to endure.

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  2. Missing the landing zone is more likely for less experienced skydivers, should give them a target far away from the taxiway.

    A post on another pilots forum stated "The field is of the old military triangular types with plenty of room to land yet everyone tries to land right next to the taxi way so they don’t have to walk as far. The owner has preached multiple times to stop doing this and has even closed operations early when people kept breaking the rules."

    Aerial view of the field :
    https://www.google.com/maps/@34.789333,-81.195778,2508m/data=!3m1!1e3

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    Replies
    1. ^^^^ Zoom in and look at the almost-landed canopy and shadow that is very close to the taxiway/apron in that Google view. Compare position to grass space available. Kind of ironic that one random Google photo is able to show distance discipline being flaunted.

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  3. What I heard was that it was his first jump.

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    Replies
    1. Seems like his missing the target would be either steering trouble with the canopy, poor training or perhaps gusting wind.

      That skydive company provides a "Learn To Skydive Solo First Jump Course", so he would have been trained on how to pattern the landing.

      Hard to imagine that he could not steer away from the aircraft if he was paying attention to how his final approach was lining up.

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