Skydiving Experience

Adam Bennett was a skydiving instructor with more than 20 years’ experience and a hatred of flying.

”We always joked how he loved the skydiving side of things but he never ever liked the plane ride,” his friend and former boss Anthony Boucaut said yesterday.

”He was never a fan of aeroplanes, which is funny, given someone in his situation. He often made a few jokes that the bloody aeroplane ride would be the end of him.”

“Batty” … Adam Bennett
Mr Bennett, 47, of Wollongong, was one of nine people killed in a light plane that crashed and caught fire on take-off on Saturday at Fox Glacier, on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island. It was New Zealand’s worst aviation disaster in 17 years.

He was one of four instructors aboard the plane working for Skydive New Zealand and had been living in Motueka, near Nelson, for the past 2½ years.

Another Australian, Glenn Bourke, 18, of Coburg, Victoria, who was on his first trip overseas, was also killed, along with the pilot and three tourists, from Ireland, Germany and Britain.

Mr Boucaut said Mr Bennett had been given the nickname ”Batty” after he returned from working for skydiving companies in far north Queensland 15 years ago.

”He spent five years up there and anyone who spends a bit of time up in the tropics goes a bit mad,” Mr Boucaut said. ”He was just a unique bloke. They broke the mould after they made him.

”Everyone who jumped out of a plane with him would remember him. He had an overabundance of energy, that’s how I’d describe it.”

Mr Bennett worked for Mr Boucaut’s Skydive the Beach, in Wollongong, for almost a decade, sometimes going up in the air 15 times a day, and had just completed his 10,000th jump.

He developed a love for BASE jumping five years ago, which took him all over Asia and Europe before he finally settled in New Zealand.

”He just loved parachuting and he was bloody good at it,” Mr Boucaut said.

Mr Bennett’s mother, Pamela, will fly to New Zealand today to bring his body home.

Yesterday a team of six investigators began inquiries into the crash. They have warned that their work could take up to a year to complete. They are confident they will find ”most, if not all” of the reasons for the crash, despite fire causing massive damage to the aircraft.

On Saturday, December 6th; I met Arne out at Skydive The Farm. Various others were there like Kyle, Edwardo, Rodrigo, DZ Chad… so many familiar faces, too a lot of to list.

The weatherman known as for much more sunshine than clouds and low 50′s F. When I arrived, we had more clouds than sunshine (actually the sun wasn’t out until the sunset load). The temperature was around the mid-forty’s.

This was great practice for me as being inside the front it’s critical to drive my legs down similar to how I do when sit flying. If I hadn’t held up the front….we would all have fallen apart. I’m happy I’m improving…I was able to hold my sit all the way down…

At the end Chad was going to obtain picture of me opening. The problem was I dropped fast and was lower than him. I waited for a little although, and then saw him deploy. I looked at my altimeter although deploying my key parachute. It was the lowest I have ever opened my major canopy. Not smart!

I was under my key canopy, flying back to the field at The Farm…when I realized the chance of me making it over the trees, power lines and wooden fence that face the primary road was growing slim. Rather than push my luck…there was a nice field to my appropriate. I turned into it and landed safely on my feet. I slid with my shoes across the mounds of grass for numerous feet. I was fortunate, specifically when it comes to not stepping on a cow pie.

This jump stared out with Edwardo, Rodrigo, and Arne. We were in line behind a huge group of belly flyers when they chose not to jump. Our group felt comfortable as we knew the bottoms of the cloud cover was 8500 feet. So we passed them and went. I exited a bit behind the group and went into a sit while I watched them the entire time. I eventually caught up to them, flew more than to Edwardo as he headed over to Arne. Arne was base….somehow I was having so much fun, I forgot.

A good suggestion was as I jump much more with Arne, for me to do whatever I have to to try and stick with Arne. Arne is making progress in his free flying…and it will only tune my skills even much more if I can adjust and hang with him. I can improvise on my sit, stand and belly to adjust his descent rate. I look forward to trying this out. We also talked about locking legs again to help stable things out a bit. His shoulder has to heal up more before trying a day of that.

Last jump of the day. We decided to all belly fly and just have fun. I must admit, as the sun was dropping, it was acquiring quite cold. By the time I landed, my fingers hurt a lot. I don’t know if I really messed them up when I was a kid growing up skiing and running around in the snow all the time. But my finger tips felt like pins were being shoved into them. I’m going to check out some warmer but less bulky gloves at some local sports stores.

All in all a wonderful day. The evening was welcomed with food and a holiday gift exchange. I managed to catch some video while trying out my new camera….maybe I will post some of it.