Shoreham skydiver's "tragic" death

Mark Dare, 21, of Shoreham, was skydiving with friends on June 21, 2006, at Gap/Tallard Aerodrome in south-east France when a landing manoeuvre he attempted went wrong and he crashed to the ground.

He was taken to hospital, but died the following day from his injuries.

At an inquest on Monday, West Sussex coroner Roger Stone recorded a verdict of accidental death.

At the inquest, Mr Dare's mother, Dawn, said her son had become interested in skydiving in 2003 during his time at Bristol University and he had joined the university's club. He had also joined a skydiving club in Kent.

She said: "He went to France with members of the university club and was very excited about it.

"I spoke to him on Monday, June 19, on the telephone while he was at the airport and he was in good spirits."

Mrs Dare received a call on Wednesday, June 21, to say there had been an accident and she rushed over to France '” but her son died the following day.

A report on the accident was compiled by the French authorities and this was translated into English by Charles Edwards, a former Worthing coroner's officer.

The report said this had been Mr Dare's 99th jump and he had done some jumps the previous day.

Mr Dare and other members of the group had boarded a light aircraft at 9am and started to skydive from the plane once it reached about 11,500ft. They went into freefall and the descend was going normally.

Between about 300ft and 600ft from the ground, Mr Dare was seen to make four turns to the right, a sign he was trying a "flare" manoeuvre, which allows the skydiver to glide to the ground. Then, he struck the ground.

Marc Chardavoine, director of the parachute centre in France, witnessed what happened from the ground.

In the report, Mr Chardavoine said he believed the accident had happened because of Mr Dare's actions.

He said he believed Mr Dare had made the turns for his own amusement and had probably become disorientated and not realised how close to the ground he was.

Another witness, Jean Prunier, said the flare was risky and Mr Dare had been too low to do it.

A post-mortem examination rev-ealed Mr Dare had died from multiple injuries.

Mr Stone said: "He had taken a manoeuvre and, because of either a miscalculation of distance, or owing to disorientation, he has hit the ground at some speed. This was a true and tragic accident of someone undertaking a sport."