Featured Image Credit: X/@Morbidful
Topics: US News, Extreme Sports
Joe Harker
An experienced skydiver with hundreds of successful jumps died after he jumped out of a plane but forgot to put on a parachute.
35-year-old American man Ivan McGuire had plenty of skydiving experience and had already completed two successful jumps on the day he died during his third attempt of the day on 2 April, 1988.
He'd gone up in the plane to film a student and instructor from the Franklin County Sports Parachute Center when he jumped out of the aircraft right before they did and plummeted 10,500 feet to his tragic death.
McGuire had completed over 800 jumps prior to the terrible error of forgetting to put on his parachute before jumping, and investigators at the time said the equipment he'd been carrying around to film the skydiving student could have been mistaken for a backpack with a parachute in it.
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Footage from his camera shows him at first capturing the sight of the student and instructor doing their skydive before they pulled their parachute and began their controlled descent to the ground.
The footage then begins to wildly wave around as McGuire searched for his own ripcord to pull and open his parachute.
Not finding it, the 35-year-old was left in the entirely unenviable situation of plummeting towards the ground at great speed with no way to slow his descent.
His last words were recorded as he frantically searched for his parachute and realised he didn't have it, as the experienced skydiver said: "Oh my God, No!"
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McGuire's body was found in a wooded area a short distance away from the airstrip his plane had taken off from.
Foul play and suicide were ruled out as causes of Ivan's death, and an investigation looked into whether the plane's pilot had checked to see if he was wearing a parachute or not.
Safety regulations require that the pilot of the plane check everyone who is going to jump for a parachute before they go.
In the end the investigation ruled that McGuire had forgotten his parachute and the tragic lapse in memory had led to his death.
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Even experienced skydivers can end up in the most awful of situations, as in April last year 46-year-old Sam Cornwell died while filming another skydiver after his parachute became twisted as he tried to deploy it, while his reserve parachute also failed to properly deploy.
A veteran skydiver who survived his impact with the ground after his equipment failed him once spoke of what he thought would be his final thoughts as he fell.
Craig Stapleton had been jumping with a friend in 2013 when his parachutes became tangled and he couldn't slow his descent.
As he fell he thought 'God hates me', thought of his wife and kids and how he 'was just really sorry that I wasn't there to say goodbye to them', then reckoned that even if he did survive he'd be going through 'months of rehab, hospitals... nothing fun again'.
Incredibly, Craig survived thanks to landing on a soft pile of freshly ploughed vineyard dirt and it took him a few moments to realise he wasn't dead.