This skydiving footage was recorded from the point of view of veteran parachutist
Ivan Lester McGuire. He is filming a student and instructor as they make
their exit from the plane. As the two deploy their parachute,
they quickly disappear out of frame as McGuire continues to fall. He is not wearing a parachute.
In April 1988, Ivan Lester McGuire is making his third jump of the day at Franklin County Sports
Parachute Centre in North Carolina, USA. The 35-year-old McGuire was an experienced skydiver
with over 800 successful jumps under his belt. He will be jumping with a student and instructor,
filming their descent for educational material for the Parachute Centre. Today,
a high quality recording of this nature can be captured with small, inexpensive cameras
readily available on the consumer market, but in 1988, this required heavy equipment,
which is stored in McGuire's backpack. The plane carries the three to an altitude
of over 10,000 ft, at which point they jump. McGuire goes first to capture the
others as they leave the plane. McGuire remains in close proximity to the student and instructor,
until they deploy their chute and disappear above McGuire. Assumedly this is the point where McGuire
would also deploy his chute to maintain the two in frame. However, as he reaches for the cord,
he suddenly notices he does not have one. He exclaims "oh my God, no!" as the realisation
sinks in that he does not have a parachute, and no one can help him as he hurtles towards the ground.
Ivan McGuire is killed in the fall. His recording equipment is severely damaged,
but pieces of the film are recovered to ascertain why the skydiver's body is found
without a parachute. It's quickly discovered that McGuire had not somehow lost his parachute
during the jump, he jumped without one; with his filmed confusion and distress seemingly
indicating that this was unintentional. So how and why did such an experienced
skydiver leave the plane without a parachute? Attention immediately turned to the plane's
pilot. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector said of the incident; "There is a regulation,
No. 105, that states that no one may jump unless the pilot checks the parachutes.",
implying gross negligence on the part of a pilot who allowed a man to jump from the plane without
even a pack on his back. But Ivan McGuire did have a backpack, one of a similar mass
and weight to a parachute pack, but it was filled with recording equipment, not skydiving equipment.
Ultimately the incident was ruled an accident, with no foul play suspected. It's thought that
McGuire's camera pack was misidentified as a parachute pack by everyone involved,
including McGuire himself. Given that this was his third jump of the day,
McGuire may have allowed the repitition of events to dull his alertness, confusing the
familiar weight on his back with that of a parachute without giving it a second thought.
It was only as he reached for a pullstring that did not exist, that McGuire realised
something was wrong. His mind may have replayed the day's events, at which point he'd know he had
no recollection of bringing along the parachute - a horrible sinking feeling that anyone who's
left a set of keys, wallet or phone behind will be familiar with, only this was not a simple
inconvenience, it was a nightmare; a desperate hoping, pleading that somehow this isn't real,
that the mistake you've made was as painfully obvious to you when you made it as it is now,
that you had taken the few seconds to correct that mistake, when the fact that you know you didn't is
becoming clearer and clearer to you. With such a long fall, Ivan Lester McGuire had a long time to
contemplate this, knowing that this mistake meant that these would be his last moments.