A town in southwestern France where a diver was killed by an airplane wing while skydiving/AKSARAN/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images
2023.11.25 Sat posted at 16:30 JST
Paris (CNN) A 64-year-old French pilot was found guilty of manslaughter for killing a skydiving diver with the wing of the plane he was piloting, and was sentenced to a one-year suspended prison sentence. A criminal court in southern France confirmed this to CNN on the 25th.
The diver’s death occurred near Toulouse in southwestern France in July 2018, according to an investigation report published in 2020 by the French Air Accident Investigation Agency.
The Swiss-made aircraft the defendant was piloting at the time had 10 skydivers and a coach on board. The report said the left wing of the plane struck the man, seconds after the 40-year-old man wearing a wingsuit first ejected from the plane. The man reportedly died from the impact.
The defendant thought he had turned the aircraft to the left, deviating from the man’s descent route, but a few seconds later he felt a heavy impact and realized he had hit the man.
According to the report, a camera worn by the second skydiver captured footage of the entire crash.
Multiple factors may have contributed to the crash. Specifically, there was no meeting between the skydiver and the defendant on board the plane, and the plane nosedived. At the time of the maneuver, the defendant did not see the skydivers.
According to the report, the defendant, who was 58 years old at the time, was flying the aircraft alone on that day, in violation of a medical certificate that prohibited him from flying solo. The court also sentenced the defendant to a one-year flight ban.
According to a report by a national monitoring group that works to ensure mountain safety, 13 people died in accidents while skydiving using wingsuits in France between 2015 and 2020.
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2023-11-25 07:30:00
