Man dies in skydiving mishap during annual gathering in northwestern Montana
By APWednesday, July 28, 2010
Man dies in skydiving mishap in Montana
HELENA, Mont. — A man attending a skydiving festival in the northwestern Montana town of Marion was killed when he plummeted to the ground after his parachute became entangled with another man’s.
Fred Sand, owner of Skydive Lost Prairie, which hosts the event, says the accident happened late Wednesday afternoon. He declined to release any details about the man, other than to say he was a “very, very experienced skydiver.”
Sand says the man’s parachute became entangled with another skydiver’s gear, but the man was too low to deploy a reserve parachute once he became untangled. Sand didn’t know how what the man’s elevation was when he began his free fall.
Skydive Lost Prairie was the operator of a plane that crashed in 2007 southwest of Kalispell, killing all five people on board.
