Early last year, Rachel Germon went skydiving for the first time. The recent college graduate strapped herself to an instructor for a tandem freefall jump, which went well enough that she decided to do it again.
Over the first few months of 2022, Germon, who had recently graduated from Kennesaw State University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, completed five more successful tandem jumps at Skydive Spaceland Atlanta. However, to do it on her own, Germon would need to enroll in Skydive Spaceland’s “Skydiver Training Program,” and get her solo skydive license.
Germon showed up for her first lesson and was given a safety briefing and all necessary equipment, including a parachute pack with main and reserve chutes. She paid extra to have the instructor—who would jump alongside her while keeping a firm hold on handgrips built into the left side of Germon’s harness—record the experience on video.
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The jump plane took off from a small airstrip an hour outside Atlanta at 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 22, 2022, with several other skydivers aboard. Several minutes later, the Cessna Caravan reached an altitude of 14,000 feet, and at 3:17 p.m., Germon and instructor Austin Dailey, each with their own parachutes on their backs, jumped from the plane.
Seventy-six horrifying seconds later, Germon “struck the ground at over 185 miles per hour and died upon impact,” according to a federal lawsuit obtained by The Daily Beast, “She was 26 years old.”
The lawsuit—which was filed by Rachel Germon’s mother, Donna Germon—contends the instructor inexplicably let go of Rachel Germon’s harness a few seconds into the jump, then pushed off, sending her into an uncontrolled spin. A series of additional, compounding, errors by the instructor then turned a potentially survivable situation into a death dive, the lawsuit alleges.
Dailey ultimately floated gently into the landing zone. He “turned off his camera and removed his harness and parachute,” then left the scene before authorities could interview him, the lawsuit alleges. It says an employee on the ground who watched Rachel Germon plummet to Earth was the one to call authorities, who found her body with “visibly broken bones and exposed flesh and confirmed that Ms. Germon was deceased,” the lawsuit states.
Skydiving deaths are relatively rare; out of nearly 4 million skydives in 2022, the U.S Parachute Association recorded 20 fatalities, or roughly one death every 200,000 jumps. Skydive Spaceland, for its part, bills itself as the “safest” way to learn to jump solo. Its website promises a “peaceful, 5-minute parachute flight and a soft, on-target landing.”
Attorney Robert Snyder, who is representing Donna Germon, told The Daily Beast, “Rachel Germon was a beautiful, vibrant, young woman with her whole life ahead of her. Her death was an avoidable tragedy.”
Snyder declined to provide further comment, citing pending litigation against Skydive Spaceland, owner Stephen Boyd Sr., and the manufacturer of Rachel Germon’s parachute, which the lawsuit says had a “history” of failure.
In an email, Lee McMillian, the lead attorney for Boyd and Skydive Spaceland, called the lawsuit “entirely groundless and an abuse of process for the purposes of harassing the defendants and extorting funds.”
“Ms. Germon was an adult who was properly trained and equipped,” McMillian said. “She died because she did not follow her training. The equipment was first rate, her training complied with all USPA standards, and the instructor risked his life trying to save her from her own mistakes. Moreover, Ms. Germon willingly, and knowingly, assumed all the risks of skydiving in writing on at least three occasions [that] I have been able to identify, all after being fully informed of the risks of the activity.”
In a follow-up phone call, McMillian said he is seeking Rachel Germon’s medical records “to see if she had any organic brain damage, seizure disorders, anything that would have caused her to stop functioning in the middle of a jump. Because that’s what she did.”
Dailey, who is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment.
The contents of the parachute pack Rachel Germon was wearing at the time of her death.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of GeorgiaRachel Germon “had a beautiful smile, a servant’s heart, and a zest for life that was incredibly infectious,” her obituary read.
“Whether traveling to a new place, hiking a mountain trail, or skydiving, Rachel was always up for an adventure,” it said.
Following Rachel Germon’s shocking death, the Polk County coroner contacted the FAA to investigate. An inspector arrived on the scene several hours later, according to Donna Germon’s lawsuit, which she filed in May, exactly one year after burying her daughter.
Dailey agreed to a phone interview with the FAA, and submitted a written statement in which he blamed a “malfunction with the main parachute” for Rachel Germon’s death.
But her parachute pack told a different story, her family contends.
Along with the primary main parachute handle and reserve parachute handle, Rachel Germon’s pack had a secondary main handle on the bottom left-hand side. This handle is meant as a failsafe, for the instructor to pull if the student doesn’t, or can’t, pull the main handle on their own. In analyzing the pack Germon had been wearing, the FAA inspector noticed that only the secondary main handle had been pulled, according to the lawsuit. The main parachute appeared to have deployed, but did not fully open, it says.
Since Germon had opted for Skydive Spaceland’s video add-on, most of her freefall was captured by Dailey’s body camera, the lawsuit explains. Upon leaving the plane, the footage showed Germon “faced down in a normal and correct body position: with her belly-to-earth and her arms and legs spread out,” the suit says. During the first few seconds of freefall, Germon can be seen reaching back towards her right hip, where the primary main handle is located, doing “practice touches” to get familiar with the movement.
“The only thing that should happen during the first solo training skydive is that the student should jump, practice pulling the main parachute, then deploy the main parachute,” the lawsuit states.
However, in the moments before Germon was supposed to deploy her chute, Dailey “waved his hands in front of Ms. Germon’s face, vigorously gestured, and used non-standard hand signals like pointing the landing area out to Ms. Germon,” according to the lawsuit. “Dailey’s gestures and instructions confused and distracted Ms. Germon from her primary task during this first jump: pulling her primary main parachute handle at or around 5,000 feet above the ground.”
On a solo freefall student’s first jump, USPA guidelines require instructors to maintain a grip on at least one of their charge’s harness handles until the student’s parachute deploys “and the student is effectively ripped from the instructor’s hands” by the force, the lawsuit explains. “But less than 20 seconds after exiting the plane, Dailey completely released his hold” on Germon, it contends. Dailey then broke all protocols by attempting to pass over Germon’s back from left—where the reserve chute handle was located—to the right side of her body—where the main handle was, the lawsuit says.
Why Dailey did this “is unknown,” according to the suit. Whatever the reason, Dailey had three options to deploy Germon’s parachute without leaving her reserve side, the suit maintains.
“There was no need to attempt a dangerous and almost unheard-of attempt to pass over a student during freefall,” it states. “Dailey’s attempt to pass over Ms. Germon wasted several crucial seconds of the jump, while Ms. Germon was falling at around 1,000 feet every six seconds. By the time Dailey regained his hold on Ms. Germon, only seconds remained to deploy her parachute.”
However, there was now another issue. When Dailey released his hold on Germon, her body began to spin “chaotically” through the air, the lawsuit goes on.
“Dailey attempted to frantically grab and reach for Ms. Germon, causing confusion and disorientation,” it says. “At one point, Dailey’s only contact with Ms. Germon was grabbing her ankle. At another point, Dailey tried to grab Ms. Germon’s wrist, directly violating industry standards. For several seconds, Ms. Germon was freefalling without Dailey holding onto her.”
By the time Dailey was eventually able to grab Germon’s arm, the two of them were below 3,000 feet, the altitude at which a new skydiver is meant to deploy their chute, per USPA guidelines. The absolute minimum allowable altitude for solo skydivers to deploy their chutes under USPA rules—the so-called hard deck—is 2,000 feet. With mere seconds to spare, Dailey had three options to help Germon get her parachute open, according to the suit.
“Given their altitude and falling speed, Dailey should have simply pulled Ms. Germon’s reserve-parachute deployment handle,” it says. “That would have deployed her reserve parachute, and they both would have landed safely. Dailey’s second-best option was to reach across Ms. Germon’s body and pull her primary main parachute deployment handle. Dailey chose the worst option and pulled the secondary main parachute handle instead.”
This released the main parachute’s pilot chute, as normal. But the pilot chute became knotted around the main parachute’s bridle, preventing it from being able to deploy. With almost no time left to spare, Dailey should have at this point pulled Germon’s reserve handle, the lawsuit states. Yet, it says, “almost immediately after pulling Ms. Germon’s secondary main parachute deployment handle, Dailey shoved Ms. Germon, pushing her many feet away from him.” This meant he could no longer reach the reserve handle, according to the suit.
Completely disoriented by now, Germon was unaware that Dailey had tried and failed to deploy her main parachute via the secondary main handle, the suit continues. During those final, excruciating moments, it says Germon “frantically” pulled at the main parachute handle in a fruitless attempt to save her own life. At 750 feet, with only a fraction of a second left before impact, an emergency safety device automatically deployed Germon’s reserve chute. It did not inflate, according to the lawsuit.
“Ms. Germon hit the ground at terminal velocity, approximately 185 miles per hour, without an open parachute,” it states.
Skydive Spaceland filed a counterclaim and response to the allegations, contending that Germon forfeited her right to sue for simple negligence when she signed the indemnity waiver given to all students before a jump. Further, the company maintained, Germon was given appropriate ground-based training, and correctly answered 53 of 56 questions on the prejump written test. Dailey was a “competent, experienced, and appropriately trained and rated independent contractor,” according to Skydive Spaceland’s filing.
It was Germon herself who created the problems, the filing goes on, saying that “[n]o problems were apparent until the pre-assigned deployment altitude, when, for unknown reasons, Ms. Germon took no action to deploy her main parachute.”
“When Ms. Germon failed to act to deploy her main parachute, the instructor gave her hand signals to do so, and, getting no response, passed from her left side to her right side to help her,” it says. “Even after this, Ms. Germon took no action to deploy her main parachute, so the instructor passed back to her left side, [and] pulled the secondary handle for the main parachute… as has been standard procedure for more than a decade in such emergencies.”
Dailey deployed his own parachute at just 600 feet, or three seconds before impact, according to Skydive Spaceland’s filing. This was so low, his reserve canopy fired on its own, resulting in a “two out” situation, it says.
“The jump video shows Ms. Germon, still falling, still taking no action to save her own life, very close to impact with two canopies struggling to deploy,” the filing concludes. “This Defendant denies committing any act of gross negligence or any liability for Ms. Germon’s death.”
Skydive Spaceland’s filing demanded reimbursement for the cost of hiring attorneys, expert witnesses, and investigators to defend against the claims, as well as compensation for “reputational damages” brought on by Donna Germon’s filing of the lawsuit itself.
Following Rachel Germon’s death, Skydive Spaceland Atlanta issued a statement to the media about what had happened.
“The equipment was appropriately sized, in good repair, and maintained properly by the standards of the Federal Aviation Administration,” Skydive Spaceland told CNN at the time.
“Our hearts hurt for this young lady and her family and friends, as well as our skyfamily,” Skydive Spaceland Operations Manager Sarah Skroch said. “Skydivers are a close-knit group and this hurts all of us deeply.”
Rachel Germon has never been named publicly as the victim until now.
Five months prior to Germon’s death, a 65-year-old woman died at Skydive Spaceland’s Clewiston, Florida, site when her parachute failed to open. One month after Germon died, an 18-year-old Alabama woman jumping tandem at Skydive Spaceland Atlanta broke her back in two places, suffered a punctured lung, and had a rib removed due to a parachute malfunction. In May, a 31-year-old man died at Skydive Spaceland Houston in a parachute malfunction of his own.
The total number of deaths to date across Skydive Spaceland’s five locations is unknown, but between 2000 and 2017, there were nine reported fatalities at its Houston facility alone. Donna Germon’s lawsuit specifically notes a 2008 incident in which a Skydive Spaceland instructor lost control of a solo freefall student and didn’t make sure their parachute deployed. The student’s family sued, and Skydive Spaceland settled in 2012. The terms of the agreement remain confidential.
Donna Germon’s lawsuit accuses Stephen Boyd of being a tax cheat, and says he “has even bragged of suitcases of cash derived from the operations of Skydive Spaceland Atlanta… that he stores under his bed.” It claims Boyd “intentionally keeps [Skydive Spaceland] insolvent” on paper, thus sheltering its assets from, among other things, wrongful-death lawsuits.
Germon is seeking compensatory and punitive damages as both her daughter’s parent and as administrator of her estate, “for all elements of the pain and suffering, physical and mental, including pre- and post-impact shock, fright, terror endured by Rachel Germon from the beginning of her fall until the time of her death, in an amount determined by the enlightened conscience of the jury after hearing the evidence at trial.”
The punitive damages must be sufficiently severe “to punish, penalize, and deter Defendants considering the conduct’s aggravated nature and Defendants’ financial circumstances,” the lawsuit states, asking for the court to seize Boyd’s personal assets if he tries to say his company is broke.
Skydive Spaceland has petitioned the court to dismiss Donna Germon’s claims. Both sides will argue the request on Dec. 21.
