A pilot in France found guilty of involuntary manslaughter after he decapitated a skydiver with the wing of his plane in a mid-air collision was given a suspended sentence and banned from flying for a year.
The Montauban criminal court’s ruling came in the case of Nicolas Galy, 40, who was killed during a wingsuit jump in July 2018. Galy, an experienced skydiver and engineer, died just moments after he leapt from the plane.
On July 27, 2018, Galy was the first of two wingsuiters to jump from a single-engine aircraft over Bouloc-en-Quercy, north of Toulouse, in southern France, according to The Times. Both jumpers left the plane at around 14,400 feet.
Within seconds, Alain C’s plane caught up with both skydivers around 1,000 feet into their descent. At that point, both skydivers had completed their initial freefall and were gliding with their webbed wingsuits.
It was during that stage of the jump that the left wing and a strut of Alain C’s plane hit Galy, decapitating him. Galy’s emergency parachute deployed and his headless body drifted down to a field.
