ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 15, 1996 TAG: 9604150084
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: HARTWOOD
SOURCE: Associated Press
A plane carrying four people went out of control and crashed Sunday, killing an experienced parachutist and injuring the pilot and another jumper. A third jumper escaped the crash uninjured.
State police spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell said two parachutists and the pilot were able to jump from the plunging plane. The third jumper, identified only as a Falls Church resident, apparently was unable to get out in time.
The pilot and one of the jumpers were taken to Mary Washington Hospital for treatment of injuries that were not life-threatening, Caldwell said.
According to Caldwell, two of the jumpers were in the door of the single-engine Cessna 205 shortly before 4:15 p.m. when one of the jumper's chutes inadvertently opened, sucking the jumper out of the plane. The chute hit the tail of the plane, sending it out of control.
Caldwell said the second parachutist in the door jumped when the other chute inadvertently opened. The plane was at about 10,000 feet when it went out of control, according to the state police.
``It basically went straight down,'' Caldwell said.
Caldwell said the pilot jumped when it became obvious he could not regain control of the plane. The victim was in the back of the plane, waiting for the first two jumpers to exit, she said.
The plane crashed on the Fauquier-Stafford county line about 1 mile north-northwest of the Hartwood Airport, Caldwell said.
She said the jumpers, from the Hartwood Para Center, were experienced parachutists who already had made three or four jumps Sunday before the crash.
Messages left on the answering machine at the center, located at the Hartwood Airport, were not immediately returned Sunday night.
Caldwell identified the uninjured jumper as Charles Duelfer, 43, of Arlington. She said the pilot was from Fairfax, but she did not have any more information.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration were investigating, she said.
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB