A 21-year-old pilot who works for a skydiving company was forced to make a skydiving jump of his own — his first ever — to bail out of his Cessna 182 after a previous jumper damaged the aircraft in flight.
Southern Illinois University student Shawn Kinmartin was flying south of St. Louis at 11,500 feet when the last two skydivers in the 182 jumped from the airplane. One of them hit the elevator, causing Kinmartin’s 182 to start losing altitude and making it a struggle to control the airplane.
