Skydive accident. One dead

I will be interested in the cause of this. Caravans don't fall out of the sky without provocation.
 
"Analysis" over on DropZone was that she was on the fast descent back to the airport after dropping a load.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
I will be interested in the cause of this. Caravans don't fall out of the sky without provocation.
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Falling out of the sky is a pretty good description of the flight plan of a skydiving flight after the last jumper has exited. It’s not uncommon for the drop plane to beat the jumpers to the ground.
 
Will be interested to see the ntsb’s take on this one. Slightly more than a year ago, lost another skydiving plane a few counties away, a 182, after the jumpers were discharged and the plane headed back to the airport. But for whatever reason, got very low a couple miles from the airport, then lost all or partial engine power. Struck a tree fatally injuring the pilot. Nothing obvious on preliminary. All are anxiously awaiting the final, hoping it sheds additional light on the crash. Save for some weird egress emergencies, seems like the descent and landing should be pretty benign in these planes.
 
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7,000 fpm descent rate starting just over top of the field. Seems like the usual jump plane dive bomb routine.
 
FormerHangie said:
Falling out of the sky is a pretty good description of the flight plan of a skydiving flight after the last jumper has exited. It’s not uncommon for the drop plane to beat the jumpers to the ground.
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Hey, I'm a big "chop and drop" fan, but something went wrong here. Hopefully not a control surface failure.
 
mryan75 said:
7,000 fpm descent rate starting just over top of the field. Seems like the usual jump plane dive bomb routine.
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That rate alway sounds so huge, but it's not even 80 mph vertically. Still too fast if down low.
 
The problem with these dive bomb descents is if you are a high wing, it's easy to get run over. The C208 has a huge blind spot under the nose and you seldom see clearing turns as they descend through the pattern. Normalized cowboy flying. What gets me is that jump plane then sits at idle waiting for the next group. Could have just done a normal pattern and ended up with the same rate of jumpers per hour.
 
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