This Mistake Cost 16 Skydivers Their Lives (Lake Erie Disaster)

The "unhelpful" guy in the fishing boat probably didn't even see the person in the water. Its notoriously difficult to spot somebody bobbing up and down with the waves.

I have to feel some sympathy for the pilot in this tragedy. He was wrongly identified by ATC, guided to an incorrect position, the skydivers then broke their own cardinal rule by electing to jump without having visual contact with the ground. I'm not sure what the pilot could have done to alter the outcome.

The jump was canceled earlier in the day for obvious reasons and should have remained canceled. The insistence to push on despite the danger created the problem. A very sad event.

The pilot did regain his certificate and was one of my instructors for IFR, Com, and CFI tickets. He had a tremendous flight record prior to this. IIRC...he was a CAT pilot for one of the govt. agencies. He did tell me that he had already determined his position using time/speed/etc and the early VOR out of Cleveland and ATC had been notified. Great pilot, humble man.

As a sky diver myself, I found this to be such a tragedy. But like my pilot instructor (my dad actually) said: FAA regulations came from people dying...

Lake erie is much more brutal than most people think. The water is almost always cold, and its dark, hard to see anything more than a few inches. The waves on low wind days can still mess you up. The constant winds though make sure there's always some. And when a storm hits, it can be brutal.

Scary business, indeed. I can never fathom why anyone would ever jump from a perfectly good airplane.

I work on ships, even from 20 yards a MOB you could be staring right at them and not even see them, it's unbelievable. Especially in cloudy weather

In defense of the fishing boat that allegedly drove right on by about 20 yards away, it's entirely possible they just didn't see them. I know it sounds hard to imagine, but in high waves, you would only be visible during the peak of the wave...When you're at the bottom of the wave, you're completely not visible. Now if the sun was in your eyes or you had glare on the water, it's possible the person had no idea. Also, waves (and fishing boats) are noisy. It's also possible he didn't hear them either.

I can easily believe the other vessel didn't see anyone. They train man-overboard drills with a football. Throw a dark coloured football into a four foot swell and it's easy to miss. And that's pretty much the same as trying to spot a human.

I think peer pressure or expectations probably played a part. Despite your own misgivings, if your buddies are going for it, you're likely to shrug off your own better judgment. I imagine every one of those unfortunate men thought of their families on the way down and would have given everything to have a do-over. 😢

People don't realize that the greatlakes actually have ocean like conditions. There's even Rouge waves , rip tides and you can serf at certain beaches certain times of the year

The B-25 that was used in this accident didn't survive for very long either. It was destroyed just three years later in 1970 when it was sold to new owners and the pilot who was hired for the ferry flight crashed it while coming in for the landing.

My father, Allan Homstead, was one of the two skydivers on the B25 who stayed on board and jumped from 30,000 ft. I remember hearing talk of this tragedy even though I was only 6 years old at the time. I believe this happened right before my father left for a tour in Vietnam. He was an Air Force F4 Pilot. I wish I could remember the detail of what he said about this incident, and sadly he passed 3 years ago and I cannot ask him.

My dad used to jump with those guys but he stopped after getting married just weeks before. One of his jump buddies still comes by to reminisce. Thanks for posting this.

Retired air traffic controller and a sky diver here. 20,000 feet is crazy. You start gasping at about 11~ 13,000. Back in 1967, radar was much different. I don’t blame the controller, however there has been some improvements since this incident. There is always coordination between pilot and lead skydiver. If they coudnt see the ground, the lead skydiver should have said no. Sometimes ya just need to refund the divers, and ask them to come back tomorrow.

Sucks for the pilot being given false positional data... Having the guilt on him and his license revoked..

Yeah that is a very good rule ,don't jump if you can't see the target.

People who haven't been at sea don't realize how hard it is to see anything in the water, especially with a bit of a sea-state. Even when directly looking for something you often don't see it until you are almost on top of it. Additionally, all you would hear on the deck of a fishing boat is the drone of the motor. Most likely scenario is someone thought they heard something, looked around, shrugged, and went about their day.

2:13 OMG!! What a huge suprise for me!!! The Cessna 172 that appears at the video footage was part of the TopFly flight school fleet. I know that because it was the flight school were I learnt to fly (many years ago) and that specific Cessna of the video (EC-HYZ) was one of the planes I used to flew during my flight lessons!!! Topfly pilots school was placed at Spain (Sabadell Airport), however it no longer exists cause it went bankrupt some years ago. What a suprise to see it as footage of the video, it brings me old good memories!!!