FAA investigates after third skydiver dies in 2 months at Arizona facility
Authorities in Arizona are working with the Federal Aviation Administration to investigate deadly skydiving incidents after three people in two months faced issues while descending into the air.
The most recent skydiving tragedy occurred on Feb. 16 when an unidentified 47-year-old man died at about 2 p.m. near Skydive Arizona, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday. Witnesses said he was a "very experienced skydiver," the sheriff's office said. No foul play is suspected.
A similar incident occurred earlier this month after a 46-year-old man died at the same facility when his parachute did not deploy during a free fall, the Eloy Police Department said in a Facebook post. In January, a 55-year-old woman also died after complications with her parachute at Skydive Arizona.
A spokesperson for the FAA said the agency's investigations of skydiving accidents focus on inspecting the packing of the parachute and reserve parachute, and flight rules for the pilot and aircraft. The FAA does not investigate to determine the cause of the event.
The FAA looks into every skydiving mishaps that's reported to the agency.
Many skydiving accidents occur because of the jumper, according to the United States Parachute Association. The group says that "oftentimes an experienced skydiver who is pushing the limits — makes an error in judgment while landing a perfectly functioning parachute."
In 2024, nine people died from a skydiving-related incident across the country, the United States Parachute Association reported.
Sneak peek: The People v. Kouri Richins
Old-Fashioned Beef Stew
Musk doubles down on email from federal employees, Trump backs him up
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Bannon Wants Special Counsel Probe Into Musk's Contracts and Drug Use
Steve Bannon has called for a special counsel investigation into Elon Musk's lucrative federal contracts and the extent of his drug use. The MAGA civil war between the two former Trump administration figures continued over the weekend on Sunday Night with Chuck Todd, with Bannon—who already suggested deporting the South African-born tech billionaire—saying Musk should face further consequences. 'I think there have to be formal investigations,' Bannon told the former Meet the Press anchor during a discussion about SpaceX and Starlink, Musk's satellite Wi-Fi service. SpaceX should be nationalized, Bannon reiterated, adding that he shared the White House's reported security concerns about Starlink being installed there. When Todd asked who would be leading such investigations, Bannon replied that 'the best way to do it is as a special counsel that can kind of oversee everything.' 'Pull the security clearance for the drugs, temporarily. Investigate the whole drug situation,' Bannon replied. In May, The New York Times reported that Musk's drug use, which Trump speculated had a role in their blow-up last week, frequently involved ketamine, as well as Adderall, ecstasy and mushrooms. Musk, The New York Times also reported, was alerted to drug tests at SpaceX ahead of time. The White House has refused to say whether Musk was drug tested during his time as de-facto head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. On Sunday, Bannon agreed with Todd when he said that Musk 'never would have passed a security clearance as must a mid-level staffer.' Also on Todd's show, Bannon took issue with a March report that Musk, who has extensive business interests in China, was expected to receive a briefing about potential U.S. military action in that country. 'Why would you need a briefing at a highly classified level, in the tank, at the Pentagon on the China war plan?' asked Bannon, who called Musk an 'agent of influence.' For his part, Musk has described Bannon as a 'communist r-tard' and a 'criminal.' Bannon spent four months in prison last year for defying a Jan. 6 House Committee subpoena. In February, he pleaded guilty in state court to one felony count of scheming to defraud donors to his We Build the Wall fundraising campaign. Four years prior, Trump had pardoned Bannon amid his indictment in federal court over that campaign.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
A Brown Student Went Full DOGE Over How His $93,000 Tuition Is Spent. The Fallout Was Predictable—and Wrong.
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Brown University sophomore Alex Shieh had a good idea. Inspired by Elon Musk's efforts to reduce supposed staffing inefficiencies in the federal government, Shieh wondered if there were a way to quantify and combat an analogous trend at his university. So with the help of A.I. and a number of publicly available databases, he compiled a list of the university's nearly 4,000 non-faculty employees, grouped them by category, and mocked up working job descriptions for each. Then he wrote emails to all of them, asking them to describe their value to the university. Shieh hoped the project would be the basis for a reporting project that would anchor the first few issues of the Brown Spectator, a defunct conservative student newspaper he and two classmates hoped to relaunch. Shieh's project had the erstwhile DOGE chief's fingerprints all over it, but there's one big difference between the two men: Musk will be able to start drawing on Social Security (if, of course, it's still solvent) in under a decade, while Shieh can't yet legally drink. Shieh's idea, even if it did have roots in our raging national culture wars, was quite ambitious, strong work for a young man with less than half of a degree under his belt. The authorities at Brown, however, didn't see it that way. Upon getting wind of the provocative email blast, they launched a conduct-code investigation and accused Shieh and his partners of trademark violations. And although all charges were eventually dropped, the university's intent was clear: They came to bury Shieh, not to praise him. They couldn't have been more wrong to do so. And it's not just Republicans who think so. I've been teaching sophomores for over a decade and a half, and while Shieh's project is certainly undergraduate work, it's of a particularly high caliber. It is timely, relevant, and enterprising, and it asks a pressing research question. Brown shouldn't have met him with disciplinary threats. Instead, the university should have offered him the best resources an elite institution can provide: academic mentorship and access to top-flight faculty research. If I'd had the opportunity to work with Mr. Shieh, I would have begun by praising him for identifying and focusing on a pressing problem for American higher education in a time of rising tuition costs: administrative bloat. According to a report by the Progressive Policy Institute's Paul Weinstein Jr., non-faculty hiring has exploded over the past 50 years, and today, at the nation's top 50 universities, there is on average 1 non-faculty employee for every 4 students. This trend is particularly acute at Brown, where the ratio nears 1 to 3. But then I would challenge this student to reconsider his methodology—and to research whether Musk's approach is advisable. I would remind him that Musk's efforts to trim the fat at Twitter probably contributed to a giant drop in that company's valuation. And I would add that some experts believe that DOGE's cuts to the federal workforce may actually end up costing taxpayers money. (I would also admit that either initiative might bear fruit in the longer term.) I would then leverage the interdisciplinary connections available at a large research institution, sending Shieh to colleagues in the business school to learn about other approaches to considering and enacting substantial layoffs. If Shieh and his partners persisted, I would have sent them to professors in sociology and communications to figure out best practices for designing a survey that didn't inspire one recipient to respond, 'Fuck off.' (His email, which only garnered 20 responses, allegedly included the too-pert question 'What do you do all day?') If he wanted, in good faith, to get results, he should have recognized that he was operating inside a highly polarized, charged environment, sending a survey to adults who pay their bills with these jobs, and modulated his approach accordingly—something the university's many experts in rhetoric could have helped him see. As a onetime writing instructor, I would also advise him that it is misleading to refer to that profane recipient as an 'administrator [at] Brown' in Congressional testimony, when he is really a relatively low-level functionary in the events planning office. And by the way, I would have done all these things not because I agree with Shieh. Indeed, I don't think I do. Rather, I would have supported him because he had a serious academic question and the drive to think it through as part of an ambitious, time-intensive project. The fact that Brown University responded so aggressively only lends ammunition to those on the right who believe—often correctly—that American academia is hostile to conservative viewpoints. (This despite the fact that, as Shieh himself said, 'It's not inherently conservative to want to make education more affordable.') Now, perhaps Brown would have done some of these things had they been given ample notice of Shieh's plans, or if Shieh had registered the Spectator with the university in advance. As it was, it seems they were blindsided, and ended up reacting, rather than acting. So now, instead of boasting about high-profile conservative-leaning student research, they're trying to put out a political firestorm and opening themselves to attack at a moment when Elon Musk's old boss is gunning for the Ivy Leagues.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump says he doesn't know if Elon Musk used drugs at White House
President Donald Trump on Monday said he doesn't know if billionaire Elon Musk ever used prescription or illegal drugs at the White House. Just days after their public falling out, Trump said he wished the world's richest man well but didn't deny that Musk could have been using drugs during his stint working for the administration. 'I don't think so. I hope not,' Trump said in response to a question about Musk's reported drug use at an unrelated White House forum. 'We had a good relationship and I just wish him well, very well actually.' Musk brushed off reports of his regular excessive drug use last month at a chummy send off hosted by Trump at the Oval Office. The New York Times reported that Musk regularly popped pills, including ketamine, Adderall and psychedelic drugs during his time on the Trump campaign trail last year and has evaded random drug tests. The billionaires' bromance quickly went south last week when Musk trashed as an 'abomination' the sprawling budget bill that Republicans are seeking to jam through Congress. Trump responded by slamming Musk, who fired back by accusing Trump of being included in the government files of clients of notorious sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein and backing a call for him to be impeached. The SpaceX and Tesla billionaire later deleted those posts, but the damage was done. Trump says he's in no hurry to talk to Musk and assumes their friendship is done. He suggested a potential probe of federal contracts that massively benefit Musk's companies while MAGA allies have called for investigations into Musk's drug use and even his immigration status. The Washington Post quoted Trump as calling Musk a 'big-time drug addict,' citing unnamed aides. Trump also brushed aside reports that Musk got into a physical altercation with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a spat near the Oval Office. 'I don't know about any physicality,' Trump said. Bessent and a handful of other Trump cabinet secretaries openly feuded with Musk over what they perceived as his interference. Bessent won a turf battle with Musk when Trump sided with Bessent over his pick to lead the Internal Revenue Service after Musk had tried to install one of his loyalists at the helm of the powerful tax agency. _____
