Man Fails to Deploy His Chute, Plunges to Death
The morning after being arrested on his second drunk driving charge, a man fell to his death when he failed to deploy his parachute during a jump from 4,500 feet.
Scott Fletcher Southerland, 23, was arrested Saturday and released from jail the next day. He jumped to his death later Sunday from a plane used by a company called Skydive Skyranch, where Southerland was a regular.
Southerland was an experienced parachutist and used his own gear for the jump--his 95th.
Wolf Grulkey, the plane’s pilot, said Southerland’s rig was equipped to automatically deploy a parachute at 750 feet. The lines to the reserve chute had been cut, Grulkey said.
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