NTSB Factual Report

On September 28, 2002, approximately 1845 Pacific daylight time, a Cessna 182, N5337B, impacted the terrain during an uncontrolled descent about three miles northwest of Estacada, Oregon. The private pilot and the four skydivers he took aloft were not injured, but the aircraft, which is owned and operated by Skydive Incorporated of Eagle Creek, Oregon, was destroyed. The 14 CFR Part 91 skydiving release flight, which departed Beaver Oaks Airport, Estacada, Oregon, about 15 minutes earlier, was being operated in visual meteorological conditions. No flight plan had been filed. There was no report of an ELT transmission.

According to the pilot, after leveling at 10,500 feet above sea level (MSL), all four jumpers took their positions on the right exterior jump-step of the aircraft. Just after the last jumper was on the step, the parachute of one of the jumpers inadvertently deployed and streamed back into the aircraft's tail surfaces. Soon thereafter, the subject jumper separated himself from the deployed parachute, jumped from the aircraft, and opened his reserve chute. At about the same time, the other three jumpers also departed the aircraft. Although the pilot attempted to control the aircraft, he found that with the parachute wrapped around the tail surfaces, the rudder and elevator did not respond to his control inputs. He therefore applied a small amount of right rudder in an attempt to separate the parachute from the aircraft, but the airplane responded by pitching nose down and entering what appeared to the pilot to be an inverted spin. At that point, the pilot also jumped from the aircraft and successfully opened his parachute, and the aircraft continued to spin inverted until it impacted the terrain.

NTSB Probable Cause

The entanglement of an inadvertently opened skydiver's parachute in the aircraft’s elevator and rudder just after a group of four skydivers positioned themselves on the aircraft's external jump platform prior to a jump.