Parachuting team member killed
Date: 16 July 2010
By Dean Wingrin
A founding member of the South African Air Force's Golden Eagles parachuting team has fallen to his death during a practise run at around 11 this morning.
Initial reports suggest that the parachute of Warrant Officer Brian Slade, who was in his fifties, failed to open and he landed on the Beachwood Golf course next to the Virginia Airport. The team was practising for the Durban Airshow to be held tomorrow at the Viginia Airport.
Airshow spokesperson Ray de Vries said, "Airshows are for fun and for public entertainment and to exhilarate the crowd and so when a tragedy like this occurs, it's obviously a horrible, horrible thing and our hearts go out to his family and his fellow skydivers."
It appears that slade hit the port tailplane of the C-47TP as he exited the aircraft and may have been incapacitated and thus unable to open his parachute.
