An experienced skydiving instructor is dead following a parachuting accident near Edmonton over the weekend.
John Scott, 49, was skydiving at Skydive Eden North, a facility northwest of Stony Plain, on Saturday when he landed too quickly in the drop zone, reports Global Edmonton.
“When he came to the flare, or the breaking point for landing, he made a miscalculation or mishandled it at that time. He had a high impact landing," Lyle Waddell, the owner of the school, told Global.
Scott was a retired military major who had been skydiving for more almost 30 years. He had made more than 9,000 jumps and his skydiving had taken him around the world., The Edmonton Journal reported.
Scott was on his fourth jump of the day, having completed three earlier tandem jumps with customers - on what happened to be this year's opening day at the school, reports CBC Edmonton.
It's not known if Scott's parachute was working properly, RCMP told CBC, but Waddell said he didn't see anything go wrong during the jump.
“Everything was good, parachute opened great. He was doing the John thing — he flies a very small, fast parachute — and he just missed on the bottom end,” he said.
Scott was unresponsive and taken to hospital, and later died from his injuries.
Scott was a member of the Canadian national skydiving team and was part of a world-record jump in 2007, when 100 skydivers from around the world formed a diamond in the skies over Florida, The Calgary Sun reported.
The last time Skydive Eden North recorded a death was in 1996 after an instructor took a hard landing and died from his injuries.
Scott's cousin, Brenda Lachance, told CTV News she is devastated by the loss.
“It was his passion so he died doing what he loved doing,” Lachance said.
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