Cessna 182 N5337B

Summary

On 29 September 2002 at about 01:45 local time, a Cessna 182 registered N5337B, operated by Skydive Incorporated, was involved in an accident near Estacada, Oregon, United States. 5 people were on board and nobody was injured. The aircraft was destroyed. The NTSB has published a probable cause for this accident; it is quoted in full below.

Date

29 September 2002 at 01:45

Classification

Accident

Location

Estacada, Oregon, United States

Coordinates

45.3031, -122.3597

Aircraft

Cessna 182

Registration

N5337B

Category

Airplane

Engines

1

Operator

Skydive Incorporated

Operating rule

Part 91: General Aviation

Purpose of flight

Skydiving

Phase of flight

Not recorded

Route

Estacada → Unknown

Aircraft damage

Destroyed

Weather

VMC

Light

Day

NTSB number

SEA02LA184

Nobody was injured.

The entanglement of an inadvertently opened skydiver's parachute in the aircraft’s elevator and rudder just after a group of four skydivers positioned themselves on the aircraft's external jump platform prior to a jump.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record. This site does not paraphrase or interpret it.

Read the full NTSB narrative

While the aircraft was level at 10,500 feet above sea level (MSL), four skydivers took their positions on the right exterior jump-step of the aircraft. Just after the last jumper was on the step, the parachute of one of the jumpers inadvertently deployed and streamed back into the aircraft's tail surfaces. Soon thereafter, the subject jumper separated himself from the deployed parachute, jumped from the aircraft, and opened his reserve chute. At about the same time, the other three jumpers also departed the aircraft. Although the pilot attempted to control the aircraft, he found that with the parachute wrapped around the tail surfaces, the rudder and elevator did not respond to his control inputs. He therefore applied a small amount of right rudder in an attempt to separate the parachute from the aircraft, but the airplane responded by pitching nose down and entering what appeared to the pilot to be an inverted spin. At that point, the pilot also jumped from the aircraft and successfully opened his parachute, and the aircraft continued to spin inverted until it impacted the terrain.

Quoted verbatim from the NTSB record.