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FAA investigating skydiving death of Air Force cadet

Posted at 4:10 PM, May 09, 2017
and last updated 2017-05-09 18:10:16-04

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the death of an Air Force Academy cadet who died in a commercial skydiving accident.

The El Paso County Sheriff's Department says Kaleb Estes was killed in a hard landing Sunday in a field near a business called Out of the Blue Skydiving in Calhan. It's about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of the academy campus in Colorado Springs.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Jacqueline Kirby told The Gazette of Colorado Springs that an emergency parachute was found at the scene but that investigators were still looking for the primary parachute. That could mean that Estes had a problem with his primary parachute and jettisoned it.

Estes graduated from high school in Hartselle, Alabama, and would have graduated from the academy on May 24.

He had made more than 500 skydiving jumps.