Go Skydive Nashville loses dive instructor

[Pilot Fighter]

Sad day at John Tune.

Any skydivers in the house? On tandem rigs, doesn’t the instructor wear the chute and clips onto the student harness? The only thing I can picture is the instructor slipping out of his harness after failing to attach leg straps.

Missing skydiving instructor found dead, police say

An MNPD helicopter crew found the 35-year-old instructor’s body in the clearing of a wooded are off of Ashland City Highway.

www.wsmv.com

 

[NovemberEcho]

“The skydiver was found lodged in a tree with an open parachute in a wooded area in the 4500 block of Ashland City Highway. He has been safely removed from the tree and is expected to be ok.

MNPD said the instructor is presumed to have fallen out of the plane without a parachute. He has still not been located at this time.”

These are two strange paragraphs to have back to back. I’m assuming one is an update, but not annotated as such.

 

[Pilot Fighter]

“The skydiver was found lodged in a tree with an open parachute in a wooded area in the 4500 block of Ashland City Highway. He has been safely removed from the tree and is expected to be ok.

MNPD said the instructor is presumed to have fallen out of the plane without a parachute. He has still not been located at this time.”

These are two strange paragraphs to have back to back. I’m assuming one is an update, but not annotated as such.

Tandem jump. Student had a good chute and was found quickly hanging from trees. Instructor had no chute and fell to his death. He was missing for a period before his body was found.

I do hate when they insert updates instead of editing the story and just indicating that it has been updated.

 

[Oxman]

It is insane that they are sky diving this close to BNA. There are so many charter jets and planes there.

 

[NovemberEcho]

It is insane that they are sky diving this close to BNA. There are so many charter jets and planes there.

View attachment 85895

We have skydiving out of 4N1 which is smack in the middle of everything when we’re landing south. Unfortunately it’s just outside the bravo so we can’t di anything about it. Can increase workload dramatically.

 

[Oxman]

We have skydiving out of 4N1 which is smack in the middle of everything when we’re landing south. Unfortunately it’s just outside the bravo so we can’t di anything about it. Can increase workload dramatically.

I had to look 4N1 up on SkyVector. Jesus. When does common sense come into play there?

 

[moxiepilot]

It is insane that they are sky diving this close to BNA. There are so many charter jets and planes there.

View attachment 85895

Yeah 1 of my 3 DZs was at Penn ridge. Smack dab in between the corridors for Allentown Philadelphia and NYC

 

[Oxman]

Yeah 1 of my 3 DZs was at Penn ridge. Smack dab in between the corridors for Allentown Philadelphia and NYC

Between that and jumpers climbing all over a plane like it was a train in India, I'll stay on the ground.

 

[NovemberEcho]

I had to look 4N1 up on SkyVector. Jesus. When does common sense come into play there?

It doesn’t. The fun part though was that the skydive op at FWN which has been there for decades absolutely HATES the 4n1 op cause they’re closer to the city and are undercutting his business and he would talk so much • to the 4n1 jump pilots on freq. I truly enjoyed it cause until we got an LOA with them the 4n1 guys were actively trying to kill people

 

[DropTank]

Wait... how does that happen?!

I thought the instructor was strapped to the parachute and the student/passenger was strapped to the instructor.

 

[Pilot Fighter]

Wait... how does that happen?!

I thought the instructor was strapped to the parachute and the student/passenger was strapped to the instructor.

Yeah, all the tandem rigs I’ve seen are configured as you have described.

The only thing I can imagine is the instructor slipped out of his harness. Perhaps he failed to secure leg straps.

If separation happened prior to deployment, I’m guessing chute auto-deployed.

Just speculation at this point.

 

[Pilot Fighter]

It’s been reported that they got hung up on the step upon exiting and instructor fell out of his harness while trying to resolve.

 

[tomokc]

I've done sport parachuting all over the country, but it's been decades. The culture back then everywhere was that everyone checked everyone else's gear: When we first put on our rigs, just before boarding, and before the door opened. You're checking pins, harnesses, pilot chute security, reserve handle, chest straps, but I don't recall ever checking someone's crotch straps. Even if one opened, the other leg would presumably prevent you from coming out of your harness completely.

 

[DropTank]

It’s been reported that they got hung up on the step upon exiting and instructor fell out of his harness while trying to resolve.

oh that frakking suuuuuuuucks.

Poor bastard had time to think about it.

 

[MikeD]

.Perhaps he failed to secure leg straps.

It happens. Watched one of my fellow squadron pilots fall to his death to the desert floor post-successful ejection, following a midair collision at about 12k MSL

 

[MikeD]

@Pilot Fighter the article is a bit inaccurate here, as LtCol Donnelly actually did successfully eject from his jet, just after the first pilot ejected from his jet successfully. However his leg straps were unclipped from his parachute harness. He got a successful drogue chute, but when the main chute opened, he fell from the harness and to his death. I remember seeing the empty collapsed main chute and harness falling like a leaf back and forth to the desert floor as his tumbling body fell rapidly faster and got there first.

Arizona Daily Wildcat - Prof remembers military husband - Wednesday April 9, 2003

 

[Pilot Fighter]

@Pilot Fighter the article is a bit inaccurate here, as LtCol Donnelly actually did successfully eject from his jet, just after the first pilot ejected from his jet successfully. However his leg straps were unclipped from his parachute harness. He got a successful drogue chute, but when the main chute opened, he fell from the harness and to his death. I remember seeing the empty collapsed main chute and harness falling like a leaf back and forth to the desert floor as his tumbling body fell rapidly faster and got there first.

Arizona Daily Wildcat - Prof remembers military husband - Wednesday April 9, 2003

I remember this one. So sad. That said, his loss has probably saved untold folks as I’m sure it’s a taking point in training.

I’m sorry this event is etched in your brain. Thank you for sharing.

 

[MikeD]

I remember this one. So sad. That said, his loss has probably saved untold folks as I’m sure it’s a taking point in training.

I’m sorry this event is etched in your brain. Thank you for sharing.

It was an unfortunate oversight, we believe. We’d been trying to catch up on the flying hour program, and were triple-turning two days a week, the flight schedule for those being 10 x 10 x 8, or three turns of 5 sections, then 5 sections, then 4 sections, the same crews flying all three turns and rolling through the hot fuel pits between turns. It was somewhat brutal and fatiguing. It was common in the hot pit to take the 8 or so minutes to use the piddle pack if needed. To do that, the leg straps of the parachute harness needed to be unbuckled, and common practice was to fully extend the left leg strap and drape it across the throttles, as a reminder to buckle back up. We can only assume that Lance didn’t do that on one of the turns, since the crew chief distinctly remembered him climbing into the jet on the first flight and the leg straps on his harness being secured. Had the midair never happened, he would’ve realized it after that third flight.

The midair was his section as a pair of attackers, working with a ground FAC (me) on the ground in a Humvee giving a scenario, targets, 9-lines and positive control. An airborne FAC showed up to take over the area, as it was starting to get dusk. I handed off the airspace to the FAC-A and started slowly packing up. I was still monitoring UHF and heard the FAC-A read out the scenario, pass a 9 line and cleared the section to attack, establishing vertical deconfliction and capping the attackers 1000’ below him and below, as he orbited above. As the attackers did their fighter to fighter over inter flight, they commenced their attack. The FAC, having cleared them to engage multiple passes, began working on new targets in his cockpit in his lazy high orbit. Lead rolled in, did a simulated weapons expenditure and had dash 2 roll in something like 15 seconds behind him. As lead pulled off the dive bomb run in his climbing safe escape, for some reason he blew threw his altitude block, and impacted the FAC while still in his 40 or so degree climb, his wing slicing off the nose of the FACs plane…the FAC one second writing on his map on his lap, and the next second a flash past his jet and his instrument panel in front of him, forward windscreen, and everything forward of those disappearing completely. If I remember right, he watched his two rudder pedals fall forward and away into the open sky that was now the front of his jet where the instrument panel and windscreen used to be right in front of him. He ejected with a good chute. Lance’s jet was on fire and still climbing, and he ejected too, minus the leg straps being connected, with the results seen. Only one survivor landing across a large canyon gorge from where I was,

 

[NovemberEcho]

Saw this today

Hero Skydiver Sacrifices His Life to Save Student in Tragic Nashville Accident

NASHVILLE, Tenn. A tight-knit community of thrill-seekers and skydiving enthusiasts is in mourning after a tragic accident took the life of a beloved instructor — who, in a final act of bravery, chose to save his student over himself.

On Saturday, 35-year-old Justin Fuller — known to many simply as “Spidey” — gave his life in what those close to the scene are calling an unmistakable act of heroism. Fuller, an experienced skydiver with over 5,000 jumps and a reputation for training elite military personnel, was conducting a tandem jump with a student out of John C. Tune Airport through Go Skydive Nashville when disaster struck.

Sources say Fuller and his student were the last pair to exit the plane when their harness equipment became snagged on the aircraft's step — a critical, split-second entanglement that could have cost both their lives.

In those final harrowing moments, Fuller was faced with an impossible choice: stay connected and risk both lives, or sever himself from the gear — ensuring the student would descend safely under the parachute, but at the cost of his own life.

He chose the student.

According to those close to the incident, the man Fuller saved was a father of several daughters, some of whom were watching from the plane. It was them — their lives, their futures — Fuller thought of as he made his selfless, final decision.

The student landed safely in a tree near Ashland City Highway and was rescued by first responders. Fuller’s body was recovered at the scene.

The Federal Aviation Administration has launched an investigation into the incident. Early reports indicate the harness equipment was not faulty or broken, suggesting the tragedy was a cruel twist of fate during what should have been a routine jump.

For those who knew him, Justin "Spidey" Fuller was far more than an instructor. He was a mentor, a friend, and a force of positivity in every room — and every sky — he entered.

“Justin Fuller Spidey, your infectious positive approach to life, the way you were there for people, the lessons you shared and the impact you had is one of the best gifts I'll carry with me until we meet again,” one friend posted on social media in a heartfelt tribute.

He lived with passion, purpose, and courage — and in the end, he died as he lived: putting others before himself.

Justin Fuller is being remembered not just as a skydiver, but as a hero.

 

[Pilot Fighter]

Saw this today

Hero Skydiver Sacrifices His Life to Save Student in Tragic Nashville Accident

NASHVILLE, Tenn. A tight-knit community of thrill-seekers and skydiving enthusiasts is in mourning after a tragic accident took the life of a beloved instructor — who, in a final act of bravery, chose to save his student over himself.

On Saturday, 35-year-old Justin Fuller — known to many simply as “Spidey” — gave his life in what those close to the scene are calling an unmistakable act of heroism. Fuller, an experienced skydiver with over 5,000 jumps and a reputation for training elite military personnel, was conducting a tandem jump with a student out of John C. Tune Airport through Go Skydive Nashville when disaster struck.

Sources say Fuller and his student were the last pair to exit the plane when their harness equipment became snagged on the aircraft's step — a critical, split-second entanglement that could have cost both their lives.

In those final harrowing moments, Fuller was faced with an impossible choice: stay connected and risk both lives, or sever himself from the gear — ensuring the student would descend safely under the parachute, but at the cost of his own life.

He chose the student.

According to those close to the incident, the man Fuller saved was a father of several daughters, some of whom were watching from the plane. It was them — their lives, their futures — Fuller thought of as he made his selfless, final decision.

The student landed safely in a tree near Ashland City Highway and was rescued by first responders. Fuller’s body was recovered at the scene.

The Federal Aviation Administration has launched an investigation into the incident. Early reports indicate the harness equipment was not faulty or broken, suggesting the tragedy was a cruel twist of fate during what should have been a routine jump.

For those who knew him, Justin "Spidey" Fuller was far more than an instructor. He was a mentor, a friend, and a force of positivity in every room — and every sky — he entered.

“Justin Fuller Spidey, your infectious positive approach to life, the way you were there for people, the lessons you shared and the impact you had is one of the best gifts I'll carry with me until we meet again,” one friend posted on social media in a heartfelt tribute.

He lived with passion, purpose, and courage — and in the end, he died as he lived: putting others before himself.

Justin Fuller is being remembered not just as a skydiver, but as a hero.

That’s a good read but I’m a bit skeptical.