A Poteau, Oklahoma woman died during a solo skydiving trip in a freak accident.
Skydiving enthusiast and mother of two, Heather Glasgow, 44, performed a solo skydiving flight at the Sallisaw Airport on February 18 when things didn’t go as planned.
The Sallisaw Police Department responded to the airport after receiving a 911 call about a skydiving accident. According to witnesses, Glasgow was spinning uncontrollably during her fall and was unable to recover.
The police department issued a statement on Facebook stating that the parachute had fully deployed, but the woman continued to spiral before hitting the ground.
Glasgow was transported by officers to the Northeastern Health System, where she died at around 8 p.m.
Her relatives characterized her as a skydiving enthusiast who had previously participated in a tandem parachute jump. According to the police report, Glasgow had taken two jump classes for beginners at the Adventure Skydiving Center.
Police said that they were cooperating with the Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s Office and the Federal Aviation Administration to determine the cause of the accident.
As soon as the news of Glasgow’s tragic accident came out, relatives and friends began posting condolences on social media.
According to the United States Parachute Association, out of more than three million skydiving jumps in 2021, there were ten fatalities. The fatality rate in 2021 was the lowest in almost two decades.
In July of the previous year, a 59-year-old woman from Florida died due to a malfunctioning parachute while skydiving in New York.
According to the agency, tandem skydiving, where the skydiver is tethered to an experienced instructor, is much safer than solo skydiving. For the past decade, the fatality rate has been one person per 500,000 jumps.