Pilot bails out after skydiver snags

Press, 6 January 1987, Page 8

Pilot bails out after skydiver snags

NZPA-AAP Melbourne

A Hollywood stuntman could not have performed the feat with more daring.

The out-of-control single-engine Cessna 206, its tailplane torn off, was spiralling from 5000 feet, heading toward the ground at 190 km/h. The pilot, John Wattis, aged 42, was pushed on to his stomach against the ceiling by tremendous G-forces, watching the plane break up around him. He crawled to a window, eventually freeing himself and parachuting away from the plane. It was his first parachute jump.

Mr Wattis’s ordeal began on Sunday when the Cessna was carrying six sky-divers over Pakenham airfield, 58km east of Melbourne. Four of the divers made their jumps without incident.

However, 19-year-old

Sophia Whight’s parachute opened prematurely, forcing her and another skydiver to jump.

Mr Wattis said Ms Whight’s parachute might have been caught in the plane’s slipstream, pulling her out He believed the young Hawthorn woman, making her 130th jump, struck the tailplane, breaking an arm and leaving him with no control.

“I started into a dive and had no control whatsoever,” .Mr Wattis said. He found himself on his stomach on the plane’s ceiling, unable to lift anything because of the tremendous G-forces. Mr Wattis somehow managed to pull himself to the window and get out.

“It is hard to explain — three feet felt like three miles.” The Cessna crashed upside down, burying the engine.

W Wattis landed safely. “I didn’t see the crash — it was behind me,” he said. “I landed about 50 feet from it, I’m glad it didn’t catch fire.” Ms Whight, using her emergency chute, and the other sky diver, John Cromb, aged 35, also made safe landings. Mr Wattis has flown for ten years and for five years has worn a parachute every time he takes a skydiver up, but Sunday was the first time he had to use one. “It’s a nuisance (to wear while flying), but I’ve worn it on good advice,” he said.

“After five years of wearing it, it paid off.” Mr Wattis said he would carry skydivers up again, but maybe not in the same type of aircraft.

“Let’s put it this way; if it is in the same aircraft and the same operation I’d be reluctant to do it.”