Skydiving Incident in Hawaii Leaves Man Seriously Injured at Pacific Skydiving

A skydiving incident in Hawaii has left a skydiver seriously injured at Pacific Skydiving located at the Dillingham Airfield over on the North Shore of Oahu.

Ambulance arrives at Pacific Skydiving to take away the injured skydiver

To make matters worst, their instructor toppled onto him according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser:

A 34-year-old male skydiver suffered serious injury Friday afternoon after a hard landing at Dillingham Airfield.

Department of Emergency Services spokeswoman Shayne Enright said the injury was to his pelvic area and the instructor toppled onto him.

The accident occurred at 12:57 p.m. Friday…

In a video released yesterday, you can see that skydivers at Pacific Skydive have been known to push the limits when it comes to jumping:

Under CFR 14 Part 91.155 conducting VFR parachute operations thru overcast skies is illegal and dangerous. Feel free to contact me for more evidence regarding FAR violations from this company, I have hours worth of footage.

14 CFR Part 105 is based on the assumption that any individual who chooses to skydive has assessed the dangers involved and assumes personal responsibility for his or her safety. The regulations in Part 105 are intended to assure the safety of those not involved in the sport, including persons and property on the surface and other users of the airspace. The skydiving community is encouraged to adopt good operating practices and programs to avoid further regulation by the FAA.

Related articles

• Two planes collide mid-air, nine skydivers jump to safety, one pilot ejects, one lands his plane – everyone survives (metro.co.uk)
• Planes Collide, 11 Skydivers All Survive (drudge.com)
• Plane flips during Dillingham landing (staradvertiser.com)
• Emergency crews responding to aircraft incident at Dillingham Airfifeld (staradvertiser.com)

Two Skydiving Records Set at Skydive Hawaii on Saturday – Tandem HALO Jumps Available to Public

Yesterday, on the North Shore of Oahu at Dillingham Airfield, KITV News Reporter Andrew Pereira and I participated in setting two Hawaii State skydiving records at Skydive Hawaii.

Andrew and I get ready for the jump of our lives

The first record was for the “highest altitude tandem “HALO” jump” leaping from the plane at over 4 miles in space at 22,000 feet.  HALO stands  for “High Altitude Low Opening” and one of the more famous HALO jumps took place recently when RedBull Skydiver Felix Baumgartner jumped from 24 miles from space or approximately 128,000 in altitude.

Some folks may remember the first time I set the Hawaii Tandem Halo Jump when I jumped from 21,000 feet back on December 11th of 2011, as Frank T.K. Hinshaw stated the first time I jumped… every extra 1,000 feet in altitude makes the risks and the danger just that much more.

The second record set yesterday was for the “altitude and wingsuit flight time record for Hawaii of 22,000ft & 4 minutes 37 seconds in flight time,” set by Hinshaw himself.

Frank T.K. Hinshaw on the far right in his wing suit

Here is a short video of me interviewing Andrew Pereira shortly before we went up and as you can tell… he was pretty nervous about what he was about to do as this was his first time skydiving, less yet doing a HALO jump.

After we were instructed on what we were to do and equipped with oxygen tanks, we traversed out to the airplane where we would have no chance of turning back once we got on that plane.

Ignacio “Nacho” Martinez, Damon Tucker, Andrew Pereira and “Papa Dop” get ready to board the plane. Photo Skydive Hawaii

When we were close to 22,000 feet in altitude, “Nacho” Martinez posted the following picture to Facebook and said “Took off on load one and saw a huge school of dolphins. Then went up on the next load and saw 6 whales. Now breathing pure oxygen while climbing to 22,000 ft. How could you not love Skydive Hawaii!?”

At 12,000 feet we donned oxygen masks as the air gets thinner the higher you go.

Here is a quick clip of the freefall part of my jump from 22,000 feet:

I free falled for about a minute until my tandem instructor Martinez pulled the chute at about 5,000 feet from the ground and then glided smoothly in for a stand-up landing.  I even got to steer the parachute myself for about 30 seconds and that was super cool!

I spy VH07V

Once again I can say it was cold… but it wasn’t near as cold as the first time I did the HALO.  Ever since I did the first HALO jump, they have offered this experience to the public as well… of course it costs a lot more then the regularly advertised jumps and I suggest you contact Skydive Hawaii directly at (808) 637-9700 or (808) 945-0222 if you or a group of folks are interested in doing this.

My view from 22,000 feet as we were about to jump from the plane

Here is the video of the second record that was broken… as T.K. said though “Set a new altitude and wingsuit flight time record for Hawaii today: 22,000ft & 4 minutes 37 seconds. . . not bad for not knowing I was going to go for the attempt until this morning. If I had inflight oxygen & gloves, I think I could get 6 minutes easy.”

I’d like to say thanks to Skydive Hawaii for giving Andrew and I this opportunity and to T.K.’s father Frank (Sr.) and the Hinshaw family for running such a great operation out on the North Shore.  They bring in a lot of tax dollars from the tourism industry and you know how much our islands depend on tourists having a good time and wanting to come back to Hawaii.

Surfings Darkside on the North Shore – New York Times NEW Video

Many people still remember this beat down by a famous local surfer that is featured in this NY Times piece:

Here is the movie trailer to “Busting Down the Door”