A professional skydiver died Saturday night, hours after her main and reserve parachutes failed during a competition in Longmont.
The woman, whose name was not released by authorities, jumped out of a plane at about 5,000 feet Saturday around 2 p.m. with at least 13 other competitors.
The event was part of two-day tournament in a sport known as swooping, a more-dangerous version of skydiving that involves high-performance parachutes and complicated aerobatics near the ground.
She hit the ground just outside the competition area near the airport.
Charissa Muilenburg, the student coordinator at the Mile-Hi Skydiving Center, where the event was held, said the woman’s main chute failed.
After cutting it away, she deployed a reserve chute, which also malfunctioned, sending her into an uncontrolled spin into the ground “at very high rate of speed.”
“For the reserve to fail as well, it’s probably a million to one,” Muilenburg said.
“We’ve been in operation for 11 years and we’ve never had a fatality.”
Even so, fatalities are much more common in swooping than in ordinary skydiving, which had 21 deaths in 2004 out of 2.4 million jumps.
In swooping, competitors release a high-performance chute close to the ground, then navigate a course as they glide over water or a few feet off the ground at speeds as high as 90 mph.
The contestants in this weekend’s competition were all highly experienced skydivers who compete in the national circuit of the Pro Swooping Tour, with events around the country.
The victim, who was in her mid-30s, was not from Colorado, Muilenburg said, and had already made as many as 4,000 jumps.
She landed in a field just outside the airport. From there she was flown to Denver Health, where she underwent surgery to treat internal injuries.
Muilenburg said that because it is so essential, reserve chutes are handled with great care.
It can take four hours to pack the chute for use, something that can only be done by a certified expert.
She said the accident would be investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the United States Parachute Association.
The competition is scheduled to continue today.
Staff writer Michael Riley can be reached at mriley@denverpost. com or 303-820-1614.
