London - A trainee skydiving instructor died after her parachute failed to open properly during a jump.
Pamela Gower, 49 - who had dwarfism - was jumping from 15,000 feet when the canopy spiralled out of her control and she fell on to a parked car.
Onlookers saw her ‘spinning like a top’ as the parachute became tangled in the air. Gower, who described herself as a ‘crazy trainee skydiver’ had posted dozens of pictures of herself online taking part in the extreme sport.
To accommodate her dwarfism, she used her own modified kit, which was signed off by the British Parachute Association in July.
Relatives on Sunday paid tribute to Gower, saying she had died ‘doing what she loved’ after she had ‘lived life to the full’.
Her death will be investigated by police, the Health and Safety Executive and the British Parachute Association. It is understood her parachute twisted on deployment - the connecting ropes were crossed over and the canopy didn’t open properly.
The only way a jumper can rectify the fault is by fully rotating to untwist their ropes, but this is often impossible to do at speed.
According to police, Gower’s jump on Saturday followed a number of skydiving events abroad, where she had used the specially adapted kit. An eyewitness claimed she looked ‘unconscious’ as she fell, crashing into a car parked in a cul-de-sac close to the airfield at Shotton Colliery in County Durham, from where her plane took off.
Ian Rosenvinge, chief instructor at Peterlee Parachute Centre, watched with horror as the tragedy unfolded. He said he knew as soon as he saw her parachute open that she was going to have a hard landing.
Rosenvinge said: ‘When the canopy opened she failed to take control and it began to turn. As it turned it built up speed and I knew she was going to land with an extremely hard impact.’ Miss Gower was airlifted to hospital by air ambulance where she was later pronounced dead.
Only a month before the accident, she wrote on Facebook: ‘Nothing makes me more happy than skydiving, can’t wait for the next jump!’
Gower’s cousin Anthony Cairns said: ‘She certainly lived life to the full.’
Gower lived alone in Hebburn, South Tyneside. She had worked as an employment advisor at Remploy for 15 years, helping people with disabilities find work. She has done a number of parachute jumps to raise money for cancer research charities.
Tony Layton, 46, who had known Gower for 20 years, said: ‘She was very outgoing, a very adventurous person. She lived life to the full, and visited Australia and China. She was into skydiving for a few years. She used to do a lot of tandem jumps and was training to be a skydiving instructor.’
Layton’s wife Lynne, 54, added: ‘Pamela did not let her disability rule her life in any way.
‘She was very headstrong. She had a lot of friends.’
Daily Mail