Skydiver who died was in 'Honeymoon in Vegas'

Skydiver who died was in 'Honeymoon in Vegas'

LAS VEGAS (AP) â€" It was ostensible to be a special birthday present to a grandmother â€" a family skyping journey with a veteran instructor who was one of a Elvis Presley impersonators who jumped from an aeroplane in a film "Honeymoon in Vegas."

But a tandem skype finished in tragedy Sunday nearby a Nevada-Arizona limit when dual parachutes unsuccessful to open, promulgation 75-year-old Claudette Porter of North Las Vegas and instructor James Fonnesbeck to their deaths.

Porter's husband, Jim Porter, pronounced his mother had talked about skyping for during slightest 20 years. Their granddaughter organised a tour to applaud Claudette Porter's birthday final month.

"Things like that occur once in a while, and there's usually not a whole ruin of a lot we can do about it," Jim Porter said.

During a jump, a categorical parachute trustworthy to Fonnesbeck and Claudette Porter did not entirely deploy, and a backup trench became caught with a categorical trench when a instructor deployed it, Mesquite military orator Jeffrey Smith said.

The backup trench had usually partially non-stop before Fonnesbeck and Porter strike a runway during Mesquite's airport, Smith said. Fonnesbeck died during a scene, while Claudette Porter died during a hospital.

Fonnesbeck, 60, was from Weston, Idaho, though changed to St. George, Utah, with his mother and became a skyping instructor. He worked for Skype Mesquite in Mesquite, Nev., about 40 miles from St. George.

Skype Mesquite owners Brad Jessey pronounced Monday he was still perplexing to figure out because a parachute malfunctioned, generally given Fonnesbeck's scarcely 11,000 jumps and his decades of knowledge as a per and instructor. Jessey pronounced Fonnesbeck had successfully jumped with other business Sunday before going adult with Claudette Porter.

"It usually baffles me that it could occur to him," Jessey said. "I mean, a one thing we all pronounced about him was, 'You know, he won't die skyping.' Well, somehow it happened, and we have no thought how."

Jessey remarkable Fonnesbeck was among a group of skyping Elvis impersonators in a 1992 film "Honeymoon in Vegas," starring Nicolas Cage and Sarah Jessica Parker. The film shows Cage and members of a "Flying Elvises" skyping during night onto a Las Vegas Strip.

Fonnesbeck's Facebook form page facilities photos of him and his mother jumping from a plane, holding hands in midair, and together on a belligerent with a deployed parachute.

"He desired doing it," Jessey said. "It was apparently his whole life."

Federal Aviation Administration orator Mike Fergus in Renton, Wash., pronounced investigators were looking into either a parachutes had been scrupulously legalised before a jump, and were also checking on a Cessna 206 aeroplane and a drifting route.

He pronounced sovereign manners need chutes to be legalised each 6 months. Backup chutes are compulsory to be packaged before jumps by an FAA-certified parachute rigger, while categorical chutes contingency be packaged with during slightest a organisation of a approved rigger, Fergus said.

Jessey pronounced a tandem burst was designed to final scarcely 7 minutes, with as most as 40 seconds of freefalling and 5 to 6 mins of gliding over a Mesquite airfield before landing.

The airfield is about 85 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

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Associated Press author Michelle Rindels contributed to this report.

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Oskar Garcia can be reached on Twitter during http://twitter.com/oskargarcia

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