2013 Superior Skydiving Crash Debriefed By Viral Pilot 74Gear
It was just over 7 years ago when two planes collided mid air in a skydiving accident over Superior, Wisconsin. It happened in November of 2013, and it was all caught on video from the skydivers who were nearly killed in the fiery crash. Amazingly nobody was seriously injured, and everyone was able to escape, including the pilot who had an emergency chute and landed safely on the ground.
Here's the story that was reported nationally by NBC news exclusively.
I was reminded recently of the video when I saw Kelsey do one of his debriefing videos on his viral Facebook page 74Gear. Kelsey is a 747 pilot who spends some of his free time discussing behind the scenes stuff that happens with planes, airliners, and other aspects. One of the things he also does is "debrief" viral videos, offering expert aviation insight into what is actually going on with these videos. The online aviation community is pretty vast with a lot of enthusiasts like myself. He's a great resource to get a fresh perspective on some of these wild aviation videos.
I saw his that included a debrief on what was happening that day in Superior. The Superior accident starts at 7:18.
The official cause of the accident from the National Transportation Safety Board is described as inadequate training and pilot error according to the Duluth News Tribune.
Kelsey got pretty much the right take on what happened as the lower plane drifted into the higher plane causing the crash. It's a miracle that no one was seriously hurt. Superior Skydiving sold the rights to the footage which paid for a new plane and donated money to local charities. Talk about a happy ending all the way around.