Two planes collide over Wisconsin, everyone survives

Nine skydivers and two pilots survived – with no serious injuries – when two planes collided in midair Saturday evening in Wisconsin. One plane went down after a big flash fireball, and the wing separated. The other landed safely.

Skydiving instructor Mike Robinson was at 12,000 feet, just seconds away from his fourth and final jump of the day, when a second plane carrying other skydivers struck the aircraft he was in, sending them all tumbling toward the ground.

None of the nine skydivers or two pilots sustained serious injury when the two planes collided in midair Saturday evening in far northwest Wisconsin near Lake Superior. Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration were in the area Sunday talking to those involved, and the cause of the incident was still being investigated, said FAA spokesman Roland Herwig.

Robinson, an instructor and safety adviser for Skydive Superior, said the 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 Robinson, who usually jumps as a trainer.

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

"We do this all the time," Robinson 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 onto 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 upon impact, Robinson said, and the two inside were able to jump. The pilot of Robinson's plane ejected himself, and the pilot of the second plane landed the aircraft safely at Richard I. Bong Airport, from where it took off. The plane was damaged.

Robinson, 64, who lives north of Duluth, Minn., watched as the plane he'd been in spiraled 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."

Robinson said the skydivers had parachutes that allowed them to steer themselves away from the falling debris and toward the planned landing spot. They opened their parachutes between 3,000 and 5,000 feet and landed safely.

The pilot of the lead plane, the one that broke apart, had an emergency parachute that cannot be steered, Robinson said. He landed elsewhere and suffered minor injuries that required medical attention.

Robinson said his group was lucky.

"It might've been a lot worse," he said. "Everybody, to a person, responded just as they should, including the pilots."

He said that as he tracked away from the plane he grew concerned when he saw only one emergency parachute — meaning only one pilot had ejected. He was relieved to learn that the pilot of the second plane was able to stay with the aircraft and land it.

Robinson said he suffered no injuries, but a few jumpers had bumps, bruises and muscle soreness. And despite the scare, he said he would not hesitate to jump again.

"Whenever the clouds and winds allow us to be up, we'll be jumping," he said, although now the company is without aircraft.

Recently, a skydiving accident in Belgium claimed the lives of 11 people. Part of the aircraft's wing broke minutes after the plane took off from an airfield on Oct. 19, sending the plane into a spiraling nosedive. The parachutists, nearly all between the ages of 20 and 40, were celebrating a birthday and weren't able to jump out. The cause of that accident is being investigated.

The National Transportation Safety Board did not return a message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Two planes collide over Wisconsin, everyone survives
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/1104/Two-planes-collide-over-Wisconsin-everyone-survives
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe