A veteran Italian skydiver died after plunging about 1,500 metres even though both of his parachutes deployed, authorities said.
Sandro Bigozzi, 49, fell to his death on Saturday after taking off from an airstrip in Montecompatri, a town just outside Rome, investigators said. Bigozzi was a well-known figure in Italy’s skydiving community with nearly 6,000 recorded jumps and more than 50,000 followers on social media. He posted video of a dive roughly two hours before the fatal flight.
Local police and aviation safety investigators have seized equipment used in the jump and interviewed several witnesses as part of the inquiry. Early indications from investigators suggest a delay in parachute deployment that would not have given the canopy sufficient time to slow Bigozzi’s descent, but they are also examining whether the jumper may have suffered a sudden medical event during the flight or skydive that impaired his ability to react.
An autopsy and toxicology tests have been ordered and are expected to be carried out in the coming days, officials said. Authorities gave no further details on the time of the jump or the exact sequence of events pending the results of forensic and technical examinations.
Bigozzi combined work as a professional skydiver with a job as a pharmaceutical sales representative. He is survived by his wife and two young children.
The accident follows other recent high-profile airborne fatalities in Italy. In July, Austrian-born skydiver Felix Baumgartner, who rose to international prominence after a 2012 stratospheric jump, was killed in a paragliding crash at a holiday resort in Porto Sant'Elpidio on Italy's Adriatic coast. Italian authorities said that earlier incident involved loss of control of a motorized paraglider and left emergency responders attempting resuscitation at the scene.
Investigators in the Montecompatri case will review Bigozzi’s equipment, video footage, airstrip procedures and witness accounts to establish whether mechanical malfunction, deployment timing, human error or medical causes led to the fatal outcome. Officials did not say whether weather conditions or aircraft operations were factors.
Skydiving safety protocols typically require a main canopy and a reserve; both canopies are designed to open in emergency situations. When deployment is delayed at low altitude, however, there may be insufficient time for a reserve canopy to fully inflate and arrest a jumper’s fall, according to aviation safety experts who commented generally on similar accidents.
Italian prosecutors and aviation safety authorities customarily pursue technical and forensic probes after fatal parachuting accidents to determine liability and whether any criminal or regulatory measures are warranted. The Montecompatri inquiry remains open as investigators await autopsy results and the completion of technical examinations.