Australia skydiving: Three dead after ‘mid-air collision’
Three skydivers have died in Queensland after they apparently collided mid-air, say Australian authorities.
Paramedics and police were called to Mission Beach, a popular skydiving spot about 140km (87 miles) south of Cairns.
Two men in their 30s, and a woman in her 50s, were found dead at the scene, said Queensland police in a statement.
Police said initial investigations found one person may have had collided with tandem skydivers, and their parachutes failed to deploy correctly.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported one local resident as saying that the three people fell on the lawn of a property about 1.5km north of the usual landing site.
An unnamed eyewitness told The Cairns Post that he saw one of the skydivers falling. “You could see one chute was tangled and it wasn’t opening.”
“I was just watching him in free fall until he went behind the trees, and that was the last I saw,” he said.
“It wasn’t good to watch. I had my heart in my mouth.”
The area’s local mayor John Kremastos told the ABC that the incident was “horrible news”, saying: “Three people in one accident is very, very sad.”
Skydiving is a popular tourist activity in the area, with many of the backpackers who travel the Queensland coast stopping by Mission Beach.
