A pilot sentenced to 12 months in prison for decapitating the parachutist he had just dropped in mid-flight
A suspended prison sentence of 12 months was requested this Tuesday, September 19, 2023 against a pilot employed in a skydiving club in Tarn-et-Garonne for having decapitated a man who was wingsuiting in mid-flight.
The terrible accident took place on July 27, 2018. A forty-year-old from Colomiers was struck and decapitated, at an altitude of 4,000 meters, by a wing of the plane from which he had just jumped ten seconds earlier in a wingsuit. The wingsuit consists of jumping into the void in a flexible winged jump suit before opening your parachute.
The pilot, an employee of the Midi-Pyrénées Parachuting School, in Bouloc-en-Quercy (Tarn-et-Garonne), should not have flown that day, his state of health prohibiting him from flying alone, temporarily, according to the investigation carried out by the Civil Aviation Accident Investigation Office (BEA).
Prosecuted for manslaughter before the Montauban criminal court, the 64-year-old pilot told the hearing that he thought his license was valid, reports The Parisian.
The Bouloc-en-Quercy skydiving school is also being prosecuted in this case for security breaches. The prosecutor requested a fine of 20,000 euros, including 10,000 suspended, against the association, accused of not having checked the license of its employee.
