Skydiving planes collide in mid-air

An FAA investigator examines the wreckage of a plane that crashed in Superior, Wisconsin after a mid-air collision with another plane. Steve Kuchera / The News-Tribune via AP

Mike Robinson, a skydiving instructor, was at 3,600 metres, just seconds away from his fourth and final jump of the day, when a second plane carrying a group of skydivers struck the aircraft he was in, sending them all tumbling towards the ground.

None of the nine skydivers or two pilots sustained serious injury when the two planes collided in mid-air on Saturday evening in far north-west Wisconsin near Lake Superior.

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials were in the area on Sunday to talk to those involved, and the cause of the incident was still being investigated, said FAA spokesman Roland Herwig.

Mr Robinson, an instructor and safety adviser for Skydive Superior, said his group of skydivers had gone up for their last jump of the day – called the “sunset load” – and the two planes were flying in formation. It was supposed to be a routine jump, and a fun one for Mr Robinson, who usually dives as a trainer.

All of the skydivers were instructors or coaches and had hundreds, if not thousands, of jumps under their belts. It was Mr Robinson’s 937th jump.

“We do this all the time,” he said. “We just don’t know what happened for sure that caused this.”

He and three other skydivers were in the lead plane, and all four had climbed out on to the step at the side of the Cessna 182 and were poised to jump. The plane behind theirs had five skydivers on board, three in position to jump and two more inside the plane, at the ready.

“We were just a few seconds away from having a normal skydive when the trail plane came over the top of the lead aircraft and came down on top of it,” he said. “It turned into a big flash fireball, and the wing separated.”

“All of us knew we had a crash ... the wing over our head was gone, so we just left,” he added.

The three skydivers who were on the step of the second plane got knocked off on impact, Mr Robinson said, and the two inside were able to jump. The pilot of Mr Robinson’s plane ejected himself, and the pilot of the second plane, although damaged, landed the aircraft safely at the airport it took off from.

Mr Robinson, 64, who lives north of Duluth, Minnesota, watched as the plane he had been in spiralled downward and broke into pieces.

“Looking around, we’re seeing the wing that came off. We’re seeing it’s on fire, and there are just parts of the airplane floating in the air with us,” he said.

“We were falling faster than those parts. So the concern was we get away from the crash area.”

* Associated Press