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Report: Skydiver failed to fasten leg straps in jump over Sebastian

By Elliott Jones
Wednesday, January 7, 2009

SEBASTIAN — The death of a 22-year-old New Jersey skydiver on Friday was caused by his own negligence, Police Chief Jim Davis said Tuesday.
Vacationing skydiver Daniel Kulpa, 22, of Cranbury, N.J., fell to his death after he became separated from his parachute — apparently because he hadn't properly attached the harness holding the parachute to his body, Davis said, based on a police investigation.
Kulpa was an experienced skydiver wearing a special outer suit — a winged outfit, for extra lift — but Davis said that prevented him from seeing the lower straps weren't fastened around his legs.
That left him attached only to his parachute with his chest straps, which Davis said weren't enough to hold him when he opened his parachute, or to stop a free fall that started at about 13,500 feet.
"The force of the opening dislodged him from the parachute," the police chief said. "He fell to his death" near the Sebastian Municipal Airport.
The parachute with the body harness still buckled was found hundreds of yards from where Kulpa hit the ground. A witness heard screaming shortly before Kulpa hit the earth.
Investigators from the Sebastian Police Department and the Federal Aviation Administration have ruled out foul play, police officials said.
The skydiver's immediate relatives are declining public comment, according to a spokesman for the New Jersey funeral home handling his memorial services.
"He was a bright man, but his own relatives said he was overconfident," Davis said.
Kulpa's fatal skydive, his second of the day, was done through Skydive Sebastian. An on-board supervisor asked Kulpa "if his stuff was all right. He said it was," Davis said, based on police interviews.
His buckled upper straps were visible. Because he was an experienced diver, Kulpa was taken at his word the lower straps under the outer suit were around his legs, Davis said.
Police sent off samples of the skydivers blood for drug and alcohol testing. Results could take more than two weeks.
The Federal Aviation Administration is doing its own investigation and results aren't expected anytime soon. Until then, FAA officials said details won't be released.
According to Davis, an FAA investigator, who visited police on Monday, was mainly concerned about the skydiver's backup parachute, which has to be packed by a FAA certified packer, rather than the skydiver. The backup parachute appeared to be in order, according to the police investigation.
NATIONAL SKYDIVING FATALITIES, BY THE NUMBERS
1: Sebastian's skydiving fatality Friday is the first in United States in 2009
25: The average annual number of skydiver deaths in the past five years
30: Last year's number of deaths out of 2.5 million individual jumps around the nation
United States Parachute Association, a private group of 32,000 members