One man was killed and one hospitalized Thursday in a skydiving accident at the Crete Airport.
They were making a tandem jump, which has an inexperienced skydiver hooked to an experienced jumper, but failed to slow enough and hit the ground at a high rate of speed.
The experienced parachutist, identified as 56-year-old Romulo Suarez of Crete, survived and was transported to Bryan West with life-threatening injuries.
The other jumper, whose name has not been released pending notification of family, was pronounced dead at the Crete Area Medical Center
Witnesses told Crete Police the parachute functioned properly and fully deployed when they exited the plane from Skydive Atlas, but for unknown reasons their didn’t sufficiently slow their speed as they approached the ground.
The Federal Aviation Administration has the lead in the investigation of the fatal skydiving accident, assisted by the Crete Police Department.