Originally Posted by
Pilot DAR
Though I never jumped, I am certain that a competent jumper could have heard and been aware of the Cessna beginning its takeoff, and being able to predict its path, and manoeuvre just enough out of its path to prevent a collision - being the jumper, there'd be good motivation! I do not consider the Cessna to be manoeuvrable enough to be able to have averted that collision at the last moment.
There was a fatality at Thruxton, in the days when I did parachuting, after a female student jumper under a conical canopy descended in to the rotor disc of a hovering helicopter. The student canopies had two steering slots and two driving slots, which gave them very little forward speed and very slow yaw response. It seemed that the student did not have the control authority to avoid the small target of the rotor disc and any suction that it was imparting.