Originally Posted by
ApolloHeli
There's also this grizzly incident from way back when at Thruxton:
Novice Parachutist Killed in Fall Onto Helicopter Blades
August 10, 1987ANDOVER, England (AP) _ A woman making her first parachute jump was killed Sunday when she fell into the swirling blades of a helicopter as she was landing, police said.
The helicopter, which had been hovering near the ground, was flipped onto its side by the impact, and the two men inside suffered minor injuries.
The woman, who was not identified, was one of five people from a parachute club taking part in a training drop at Thruxton airfield, near Andover, Hampshire, southwest of London.
″The helicopter was hovering a few feet above the ground when the woman parachuted down,″ said police Inspector John Dawson. ″Near the end of her descent, she went off course and landed on the helicopter.
″We have no idea why she went off course because a trainee before her carried out the exact same jump and landed in the designated area without any problems,″ he said.
In a second parachute accident Sunday, a disabled former paratrooper died when his chute failed to open as he made a sponsored jump for charity.
Adrian Rees, 31, who was partially paralyzed by a sports injury, fell to his death from about 2,000 feet at Langar Aerodrome, near Bingham, in Nottinghamshire, central England.
He had been making the jump to raise funds for fellow students at Portland College for the disabled, in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
I was based at Odiham at the time of that terrible accident. Thruxton used one side of the airfield for helicopter training and the other side for parachuting. If ever there was a case of “not if, but when”, this was probably it.