Skydiving accident kills two in Mokule'ia

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

An 18-year-old Nebraska woman and her Hawai'i parachuting instructor plunged 9,000 feet to their deaths near Dillingham Airfield yesterday when the main parachute and a reserve parachute in their tandem harness apparently failed to open.

They crashed into the yard of a Mokule'ia estate about a mile from the field.

Emergency Medical Services District Chief Mandy Shiraki said the reserve parachute was out of the parachute pack when the bodies were found, but had not opened.

Federal Aviation Authority investigator Curtis Whaley said the chutists jumped from an aircraft operated by a company called Drop Zone.

Whaley said reserve chutes carry a device to release automatically in response to speed, altitude or pressure. The normal routine is to eject the main chute if it is malfunctioning, then open the reserve chute, he said.

Officials with Drop Zone declined comment.

Honolulu police Detective Lt. Gary Lahens said neither the pilot nor anyone else who jumped before the couple was aware of the accident until landing in the drop zone at Dillingham Field, Lahens said.

Neither the woman nor the instructor, 44, were identified. Lahens said the woman was a tourist on a Christmas holiday visit to her brother, who lives here.

The parachutists crashed in a yard on Mahina'ai Street, narrowly missing Fred Chuckovich, who was in the yard.

"He was out in the yard fixing a gate, and heard this loud noise right behind him," said Wagner Carvalho, Chuckovich's son-in-law. "He turned around and there were two people in the yard. They had missed him by about 50 feet. It was pretty ugly, pretty ugly."

Carvalho said his 7-year-old son had just gone into the house and did not see the accident.

"My father-in-law is a tough one," Carvalho said, "but he was pretty shook up, pretty scared."

Seleah Bean was at home next door with her boyfriend, Mitchell Runyon.

"I heard a loud bang and thought it was the front gate slamming," Bean said. She said Carvalho told her later what had happened.

She and Runyon had been planning to give each other a skydiving trip for Christmas, Bean said. Those plans are off.

"I will never, ever jump," she said.

Whaley said that when two divers jump from 9,000 feet in tandem and no parachute opens, they could reach a speed of 180 mph before hitting the ground.

Investigators had not been able to find any witnesses who saw the skydivers in the air.

The accident will deeply affect the North Shore aviation community, veteran glider company owner Bill Star said last night.

"This is a pretty small community, and every time someone goes, it impacts all of us," he said. "This guy (the instructor) has been a parachute instructor for years, and there are a lot of sad hearts up here tonight."

The emergency call came in at 2:35 p.m., said Honolulu Fire Department Capt. Kenison Tejada.