John Wasik 1967, Rockledge Florida

[kai2k1 0]

I Found an article about a Wife and a Husband (Rickie and John Wasik) in the belleville IL news democrat from 1967. Rickie went in with a "tangled chute" and John subsequently killed him self 5 weeks later with a note wishing for the same silver casket that his wife was buried in. I"m going to find a way of getting a true copy of the newspaper article and posting it in here.. I just thought it was and intersting tidbit ..

Are there any people around from Rockledge or does anyone know Lyle Goodwin who was the " safety officer"


I'm interested in finding out what really happened.

Thanks
KAI

There's no truer sense of flying than sky diving," Scott Cowan

[mccurley 1]

Link to the story here

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843999,00.html?iid=chix-sphere

Watch my video Fat Women
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRWkEky8GoI

[kai2k1 0]

Thanks... I found this old papar in a lot i bought at an auction today... i was rifling through the papers and seen the article.. im amazed time magazine still had this article from 41 years ago.

There's no truer sense of flying than sky diving," Scott Cowan

[howardwhite 6]

The Wasik story -- aside from its tabloid interest -- came at a really bad time for skydiving in the US because it happened only about a month after 16 jumpers had drowned in Lake Erie after jumping through clouds from a B-25. There were Congressional hearings going on about regulating the sport. (All of this has been covered in other threads here.)
Time (in the snotty-punny style for which it was then famous) referred to the incident as a "paracide."
The safety officer was Lyle Goodin (not Goodwin).
The attached newsclip is pretty hard to read because I had to compress it a lot to make it fit. I can PM more legible clips to the morbidly curious.

HW

[howardwhite 6]

Adding to my previous....
Attached is the start of a long story about the 1967 fatality count as of mid-September. Considering there were far fewer jumpers then, it's a pretty scary number.

HW

[muff528 3]

I know this is an older thread. I found it by googling "rockledge". I am interested in seeing higher res scans of these articles. My first roommate in college in Melbourne was going through his FJC with the Falling Stars club in the fall of 1968. I would occasionally tag along with him up to Rockledge and watch them jump. His JM was Terry who was mentioned in the article you attached. I remember going with them to Kissimmee to an airshow where some of the jumpers from there were doing a demo. The Wasik story was told to me by Terry and if I remember correctly, he was the JM for both of the fatal jumps. This is where I first became interested in skydiving even though more than 20 years would pass before I would make my first jump. My roommate left school after a couple of months and I don't know if he kept jumping. His name was Owen Pharis (spelling?). I wonder what became of Terry. I don't remember Lyle but I was only there a few times.

Tony P.

[howardwhite 6]

It's pretty easy these days to find old news clips on the web, but to spare you the trouble, and because I already have a pretty big collection of them, I'll be glad to send the Wasik stories (not post them here, because if they're readable they're usually too big to post.)
Whenever someone posts something here that might have made the newspapers, I compulsively go looking for articles.

HW

[patmoore 14]

Jumpmaster was Terry Alford and he was really broken up about the incident. I knew Lyle and Tom Goodin pretty well back then.

My memory is hazy but I'm pretty sure the husband who committed suicide had recently purchased a Corvette that had belonged to one of the astronauts who was killed in the Apollo fire - I think it was Chafee.

DZGone.com
B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152.

If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

[Jerrywasik30 0]

Hello I was doing some research on my grand father about this incident. I know this thread has been some time ago but I would love to speak with anyone who knew my grandfather.

[zoobrothertom 5]

Hi, Jerry.

Try sending a PM to some of the folks above. They're good guys and will probably be happy to correspond with you.

Best of luck!

____________________________________
I'm back in the USA!!

[Jerrywasik30 0]

It was chafee's Vette. My grandfather john Wasik worked as a reporter for the Melbourne times. He covered all the space launches and was very close to the original mercury 7. I would love to talk with someone who knew him. Did you know him?

[muff528 3]

For anyone interested in this -- The Lakeland, FL Ledger has published a story beginning on Sunday's (9/24/17) front page and continuing on two full inside pages. To be continued in Monday's paper.

www.theledger.com/news/20170923/pair-of-falling-stars

50th anniversary of the events. I think it's an interesting read, but not sure how it rates the front page.