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Sky-diving company owner Michael Hawkes, far left, is flanked by his attorneys Thursday in the courtroom of District Judge Michael Cherry. Hawkes and his sky-diving company, A Skydive Las Vegas, are being sued by the family of Vic Pappadato, who died during a jump in 1998. Photo by Craig L. Moran.

Friday, March 01, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

SKY-DIVING ACCIDENT: Victim's mistakes led to death, expert says

Family's lawsuit alleges safety violations, alcohol played role

A sky-diving expert testified Thursday that award-winning sky diver Vic Pappadato was solely responsible for his death in 1998.

Raymond Ferrell, an expert sky diver and the owner of Prestar, an aviation services business, said that Pappadato deployed his parachute too late and that he failed to deal promptly with a parachute malfunction.

Ferrell said Pappadato's death outside Boulder City was caused by "Vic's failure to deploy his canopy ... and his failure to react to a minor (parachute) malfunction."

Ferrell's interpretation of what happened during a group sky-diving jump surfaced Thursday in the civil trial stemming from Pappadato's death.

After the X Games gold medal winner died, his family filed a lawsuit against local sky diver Joseph Herbst, an area sky-diving company known as A Skydive Las Vegas and the company's owner, Michael Hawkes.

Pappadato's family contends that Pappadato's death was the result of the sky-diving company not following safety procedures. The family maintains that evidence exists that some of the sky divers who jumped with Pappadato had been drinking.

Pappadato's family contends that an in-air collision between Herbst and Pappadato, both expert sky divers, caused the accident.

Earlier in the trial, another expert sky diver who participated in the jump testified. William Koffman said that while practicing the intricacies of the dive on the ground, he smelled alcohol on someone, but he could not say who.

"I noticed that several looked like they were tired, like they were dragging," Koffman said. "The closer I got to them, I could smell alcohol."

But the claim that alcohol could have played any role in the accident has been disputed by attorneys for Hawkes and Herbst. They have said that not a single witness can say that alcohol was consumed before the jump.

In assessing a videotape of the fatal plunge, Ferrell said he did not detect that anyone who participated was under the influence.

He said he had concluded Pappadato deployed his main parachute too late.

When that parachute started to twist, Pappadato should have gotten rid of it and deployed his secondary parachute, Ferrell said.

"Certainly he had time to cut away," Ferrell said.

Ferrell portrayed Hawkes as safety conscious and said that on one previous occasion, Hawkes voluntarily reported to the Federal Aviation Administration that a possible safety violation had occurred during a jump.