‘Heaven received another angel’

The Sallisaw Police Department, working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s Office, continue to investigate Saturday’s skydiving death at Sallisaw Municipal Airport.

Heather Glasgow, 44, of Poteau, was making her first solo jump when a witness said he saw her spinning uncontrollably and unable to recover before she struck the ground.

“The body that was on that parachute was just spinning in circles,” Roland Preston of Sallisaw, who was driving on U.S. 59 when he witnessed the accident, told KFSM Channel 5. “It was completely sideways. I feel like they were already unconscious in the air, because if they would have been responsive in the air, they would’ve been kicking their legs; they would have been trying to fight with their arms to control the parachute.”

Glasgow’s jump was through Adventure Skydive Center, which is cooperating with SPD and the FAA to determine the cause of the accident.

“The early stages of her skydive were reported as normal, having had a routine parachute deployment without incident,” said Paul Tucker, who along with his wife Sherri Young own Adventure Skydive Center. “The parachute appeared to be fully functioning and operational as Glasgow executed the parachute maneuvers as instructed during her training. After a short time, witnesses observed her parachute beginning to turn without any corrective action.”

Tucker said the accident occurred about 2:45 p.m., and SPD said emergency services were dispatched at 3:30 p.m. Glasgow was transported to Northeastern Health Systems Sequoyah for treatment. She died from injuries sustained in the fall shortly after 8 p.m.

Glasgow was a mother of two children. Preston told Channel 5 that as he watched Glasgow’s body fall to the ground, he thought to himself, “There’s no way that the individual could have even lived through that.”

Preston said he felt helpless and was traumatized from witnessing the accident.

“I wanted to be able to do something for the individual, but there was nothing I could do at all except call 911.”

Disbelief and grief were reflected in social media posts in the wake of Glasgow’s death.

Heather Glasgow

“Today, Heaven received another angel,” Jason Glasgow, Heather’s cousin, posted on Facebook. “The world is a lesser place without her. She lived fearlessly and set the example to never give up and never quit dreaming.”

Betty Glasgow Howse, Heather’s aunt, wrote: “This has been an unbelievable shock.”

“The management and staff of Adventure Skydive Center are in shock by this accident, and we express our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Heather,” Tucker said in a prepared statement. “Heather had made a tandem skydive six weeks before her solo jump, and we had come to know her as an eager and energetic, well-liked person. We are deeply saddened by this tragedy, and mourn her passing.”

Preston told Channel 5 he’s never heard of an issue with the skydiving center. “They’ve always been really, really big on safety — safety oriented. Everybody that I’ve come in contact with that I know that has skydived had said that their facility is one of the best around.”

According to the Adventure Skydive Center website, the training process begins with a tandem jump with a U.S. Parachute Association-certified instructor. “The tandem instructor can give you your first taste of checking your altitude, steering the canopy and answer questions you may have,” the website says. “If you’re still nervous, you can do another until you feel comfortable.”

Next is a comprehensive course that lasts up to six hours. Subsequent classes include reviews of what was learned in previous classes, along with receiving further instruction. During the second through fifth jumps, the website says the student’s “instructor will pull your chute for you as you leave from 4,500 feet. No freefall yet, just canopy time. We want you to learn to fly and control your canopy first. You will have a radio strapped to your helmet, and a coach or instructor will be talking you down until you are ready to do it on your own.”

After five jumps, students depart the airplane from higher altitudes until they reach 10,000 feet, the website says. Graduation day occurs after the 25th jump.

Tucker is a U.S. Army veteran who has hundreds of skydives, and is a USPA Instructor Aided Deployment instructor. Young is a FAA senior parachute rigger. Both have hundreds of skydives, and both have Coach ratings.

According to the USPA, there were 10 skydiving fatalities out of an estimated 3.57 million U.S. jumps in 2021. The number of fatalities in 2021 was the lowest in more than 20 years, according to USPA figures.