A Muriwai skydiving tragedy has sent shock waves through the industry after a woman plummeted into the ocean following a mid-air collision. Now the Herald on Sunday can reveal the Parakai skydiving and training operation is linked to three fatalities in as many years, sparking calls for a high-level probe. Lane Nichols investigates.
British retiree Andrew Bayram was woken at 3am by a knock at the door at his home in Suffolk. Two grim-faced police officers were standing in the dark.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you this but your daughter has been killed in an accident," they announced.
His world fell away.
Read more: 'No need to die': Skydiver worried about wind before fatal Muriwai jump
Sarah-Jane Bayram - his only child - had been living her best life in Auckland for the past six years after taking a job with the University of Auckland.
The adventure-loving trained architect was ticking off a bucket list of new challenges - tackling the nation's great walks, climbing mountains, and throwing herself out of planes.
The single 43-year-old had arrived here with few contacts. But with her outgoing nature, quirky sense of humour, piercings and brightly coloured hair, she quickly made lasting friendships - many of them from the close-knit skydiving community.
She would regularly travel out to Parakai in Auckland's beautiful northwest, ascend above the earth then tumble towards the ground at well over 200km/h - the rugged west coast and churning Tasman Sea the breathtaking backdrop.
She told her dad it felt like she was floating.
"I think she enjoyed it," Andrew tells the Herald on Sunday. "The freedom and views from above. The photos she shared were very impressive."
At the time of her death last month, Bayram had notched up nearly 300 jumps and was planning to tackle a New Zealand women's skydiving formation record attempt at Taupō next week.
Because of Covid restrictions, Andrew had not seen Bayram in two years. He watched an Auckland funeral service for his beloved daughter over the internet last week. A pre-written message from him was read aloud.
Andrew says he was "shell-shocked" to learn of Bayram's death and only now beginning to process it.
"Each day blends into another. It's more difficult now than it was two weeks ago. The more you think about it the more you remember."
He knows little more about the accident other than what's been reported by media and says he will await the inevitable investigation reports to learn exactly how his vibrant, loyal and fun-loving daughter met her end.
"I suppose it could have been avoided, no doubt. We'll just have to wait for things to take their course."
Bayram has been cremated. Half her ashes are to be scattered among her favourite New Zealand walking tracks. The other half will be interred in her grandfather's Commonwealth war grave.
It was "surreal" dealing with the tragedy from the far side of the world.
Asked if he had worried about her high-risk hobby, Andrew says: "As worried in as much as you can be when you worry about your child, but not overly worried because I knew she was very safety conscious.
"I assumed because of the danger involved it's an assumed risk sport and safety is taken very seriously."
He remembers Bayram for her spirit and courage.
"She lived life to the full and beyond. There was none of this 'what if'.
Andrew is aware of people's courageous efforts to rescue his daughter after she tumbled into the ocean during the fading light of a picturesque Muriwai sunset.
"That was very good of them. We can't really praise them enough."
He is now learning to adjust to a life without his daughter.
"Time will help things. There's a lot of paperwork to sort out and then it's just a matter of moving on and hoping that things ease. But you'll never forget.
"It happened and unfortunately she just happened to be there at that time."
A Herald on Sunday investigation has revealed Bayram is one of three solo skydivers to lose their lives in accidents in the past three years.
Two of the fatalities involved Skydive Auckland jumps. And all three involved recent graduates from sister company the New Zealand Skydiving School. Both companies are based at the same Parakai facility and share the same four directors.
Prior to the cluster, no solo parachutist had died in New Zealand since 2012.
'15 seconds off dying'
In January 2019, Irish adrenaline junky John "Jack" Creane messaged his sister back home to say he'd nearly died during a wingsuit jump.
"Was like 15 seconds off dying yesterday," Creane - a student at the New Zealand Skydiving School - wrote to sister Abby.
"Scary shit. Lost control of my suit and was spinning like this for like 7000ft."
A 10-second video clip shot from a GoPro on Creane's helmet caught the terrifying moment the 27-year-old began spinning wildly as he hurtled towards the earth at upwards of 200km/h.
Backed by the whistling scream of terminal velocity free fall, the video shows the horizon rotating violently as Creane fought to regain control and level out the jump.
He eventually steadied himself before landing safely back on terra firma.
With about 200 parachute jumps under his belt at the time, the loveable former events organiser had cheated death.
But 66 days later his luck ran out.
On March 15, 2019 - the day of the Christchurch mosque shootings - Abby was woken at 6am by a phone call at her Irish home.
Skydive Auckland's operations manager Fiona McLaren announced that Creane had been in a parachuting accident and Abby should get to New Zealand quick.
"He was in ICU so obviously it was bad, but they didn't quite know the extent."
The siblings' parents had both died, so it was up to Abby to journey around the globe to her brother's bedside as he fought for his life in Auckland Hospital.
Abby booked the first available flight and received a call from Creane's Kiwi physicians while waiting to board her plane.
"The doctors said, 'It's not good, he's not going to make it.'
"He was still on life support and they said to get here as soon as I could."
After a gruelling 24-hour flight, Abby was whisked straight to her brother to share Creane's final moments.
He had suffered unsurvivable injuries during a hard landing after a 13,000ft solo parachute jump.
A Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) report would later find he made no attempt to "flare", or slow the parachute, after making a mysterious sharp turn just 100 feet from the ground. Nor did he attempt to assume the crash position before impact.
Despite Creane's earlier brush with death, the report said there was "no record of any previous parachute handling incidents".
Just hours after Abby arrived at the hospital, life support was switched off and her brother was wheeled to an operating theatre.
In line with Creane's wishes, surgeons removed his organs and prepared them for donation, his final act helping to save the lives of several desperately sick people, including a little girl.
In a poignant twist, he died on Saint Patrick's Day - 25 years to the day since his own father's death in a pub fight.
"Broken" by grief and alone, Abby met members of the skydiving community, including friends who had learned to jump alongside Creane on the intensive six-month course.
Together they planned a fitting tribute.
Creane's body was cremated. Then, armed with his ashes, Abby and four of Creane's mates lifted off from Parakai Airport in a small plane and ascended towards the heavens.
One by one the group tumbled out of the aircraft. Abby - on her first and only skydive - was strapped to a tandem instructor. They free fell together before linking hands to form a ring. Creane's ashes were then released from a cardboard box.
His remaining ashes were later buried in the Creane family plot.
Abby said her brother had dreamed of coming to New Zealand to study skydiving and hoped to eventually travel the world making a career out of high altitude jumps.
He'd used proceeds from the sale of their dead mother's house to pay for the live-in skydiving course, which Abby believed had cost thousands of dollars.
She still misses him badly.
"I kind of had to start again. It really broke me, Jack being my last next of kin.
"He was my rock."
Creane craved adventure, and "was always a bit crazy", Abby says.
"He put himself in dangerous positions. He was very good at high-risk situations and being able to keep his cool.
"But this time he wasn't able to catch himself."
Cluster of deaths
After six consecutive years without a solo parachutist dying, there have now been three fatal accidents in as many years.
As well as Creane, Theo Williams, 21, lost his life in March last year in a Tauranga skydiving accident after hitting the ground at speed in front of horrified witnesses. He had trained at Parakai and had recently graduated from the course.
And last month Bayram, also know as SJ, died after plummeting into the ocean off Muriwai Beach. She and another jumper had collided during a nine-person "speed star" formation attempt, part of an event organised by Skydive Auckland.
As with the Creane and Williams incidents, the young man involved in the Bayram collision was a recent graduate from the school.
The Herald on Sunday has spoken to multiple skydivers in recent weeks who've expressed serious concern about the spate of accidents, one labelling the deaths "completely preventable".
The sources are questioning whether proper safety protocols are being followed and whether graduates from the skydiving school are adequately equipped to make split-second decisions in a high-risk sport known to attract daredevils.
None of the sources are prepared to be named. They fear being blacklisted from the sport they love and say people with information are being muzzled.
"There are loads of people who want to talk but are too scared to."
In the Muriwai case, the Herald on Sunday has learned Bayram expressed concern about the weather conditions shortly before boarding the aircraft because of moderate-to-fresh offshore winds.
Two other skydivers who were offered spots on Bayram's flight pulled out because of similar concerns, conscious a gear malfunction or injury could mean being "blown out to sea".
"It's horribly tragic with SJ's situation because it should never have happened," another skydiver and friend of Bayram's told the Herald.
"There are so many questions about it. Why wasn't there a boat? Why weren't the lifeguards informed that there was an event happening? Why were they jumping in a 15-knot offshore breeze?"
Local surfers and off-duty lifeguards rushed to Bayram's aid on jet skis after seeing her plunging towards the ocean after a fellow jumper managed to deploy her canopy during free fall. She was later pronounced dead by paramedics.
Senior skydivers spoken to by the Herald on Sunday believe a rescue boat should have been on standby in case something went wrong and that she may have survived had a vessel been immediately deployed.
"Had we had a boat in the water we could have been talking about SJ fighting for her life rather than somebody passing away."
Under the New Zealand Parachute Industry Association's (NZPIA) "standards and procedures", when making descents into or near water "each parachutist must .... ensure that a recovery craft and trained rescue personnel are positioned near the intended landing area".
However, NZPIA chief Stuart Bean says the rule only relates to "intended" water landings, not those planned for beaches.
The standards - though recommended as best practice - are not enforceable, Bean says, since the CAA assumed responsibility for the industry after the 2012 Carterton hot air balloon tragedy which claimed 11 lives, and the 2010 Fox Glacier disaster in which nine people aboard a crashed skydiving plane perished.
It is up to individual drop zones to formulate their own safety and risk assessments in line with CAA rules.
Skydivers are also questioning the experience of those on Bayram's jump.
The speed star formation involves the nine skydivers packing themselves tightly near the plane's exit portal, before jumping and linking up in a star during free fall. Other teams then try to beat the link-up time in subsequent jumps.
The last parachutists to leave the aircraft need to catch up to the other jumpers, but must also have the skill to slow down, or "flare", in time to avoid a collision.
A senior skydiver understands the original formation was supposed to be only three people, including Bayram, but grew to nine as others on the flight load added themselves to the jump.
One source tells the Herald on Sunday some of those jumpers were "relatively novice".
But a close friend and one of the last people to speak to Bayram says the only concerns she expressed were about "strong winds".
"SJ went out doing what she loved. It's just a horrible, awful accident."
Sources say those on the plane have been told not to talk to media while investigations are carried out.
One of Bayram's fellow jumpers that day refused to be interviewed, saying he had already talked to police, before hanging up.
Final moments
Those who loved Bayram are tortured by her final moments.
Was she dead on impact following the collision, or disabled but conscious when she entered the water?
"We still don't know," a friend says.
"If it was an accident we could all accept that. It would be human error. But there are all these factors at play, particularly if she drowned. Then she potentially could have been saved."
Local surfer Steve Morpeth was having dinner on his deck when he noticed Bayram careering off course. He grabbed a mate, drove to the beach and they sped to her rescue on a jet ski.
Morpeth says Bayram was unconscious as the pair performed CPR, purple, foaming from the mouth and nose, and appeared to have ingested water.
"My first reaction was she was a drowning victim."
She also appeared to have suffered significant bruising around the face from the collision.
The next day he received a call from a police officer following the post-mortem telling him: "There was nothing you could have done, she was brain-dead."
"I kind of thought it was him trying to make us feel better so we didn't beat ourselves up."
Morpeth understands Bayram was most likely knocked out during the collision but believes she was probably still breathing after crashing into the sea.
He added that he and his mate "did our best".
The coroner - who will make a final ruling on the cause of death - has opened an inquiry and CAA investigators have begun their own investigation. Final reports into the tragedy could take years.
The incident has forced the skydiving community to reflect on its recent safety record.
Another fatality involving 27-year-old American tourist Tyler Nii, who plunged into Lake Wakatipu during a tandem skydiving jump in 2018, resulted in recommendations to improve CAA rules to "mitigate the risks of unintended water landings".
The recommendations did not prevent Bayram's death.
"I feel it was a completely preventable tragedy, that's what makes me so angry," a friend of Bayram's says.
"It needs to stop. There is no need for people to die."
Speaking from her home in Ireland, Abby says she was alarmed to learn there are now three deaths linked to either the skydiving company or school, which in her opinion suggests a pattern.
"Skydiving is actually a very safe sport. For three people to die in the last few years, that's huge."
She feels safety protocols should be reviewed to prevent further tragedies, with tighter restrictions on young jumpers.
"If you're spinning out of control after 150 jumps in a wingsuit, maybe you're not ready for a wingsuit."
'Adventurous young men'
Skydive Auckland CEO and joint director Tony Green is defending the two companies' safety records and maintains graduates are properly trained and equipped.
He says both organisations have stringent safety standards and undergo regular CAA audits.
There is only a "one-in-a-million chance of death" from parachuting. You are more likely to die mountain biking or fishing from rocks.
In the case of Creane and Williams, accident reports show their parachutes were functioning properly and the pilots made "intentional actions", Green says.
There is always an element of risk and the sport often attracts "adventurous young men".
Any accident or fatality is worrying and will be investigated, Green says.
"If we think there's a link we will look at all the surrounding factors."
However, the latest fatalities involved recreational sport jumpers who were each certified to carry out those jumps, and responsible for observing aviation safety rules, Green says.
They were not jumping as students or staff of either company.
"They've done their training, they've been given all the skills. But all of them leave us as licensed parachutists.
"Once they leave us and are out of our control we don't have a long reach on them to stop them doing what they do."
Green says Bayram was a respected member of the skydiving community and her loss is being felt widely.
Asked whether rescue boats should now be routine during beach jumps, Green says: "Any New Zealand operator who operates over water would now want to reassess that because lightning striking twice is not uncommon.
"I probably won't even entertain beach jumps again."
In terms of Creane's wingsuit video, Green says skydivers "tend to embellish things". It was a "gross exaggeration" to suggest he was 15 seconds from death.
He added that the school did not offer wingsuit jumps as part of its training.
Green says video of the Bayram jump has been secured by police as evidence. Rumours about what caused the collision are "speculation".
Green feels for the young man involved in the accident who "has a huge cross to bloody bear".
The CAA is now investigating Williams' and Bayram's deaths.
A spokesman says parachute jumps should only be made after due consideration of the wind strength and direction.
Commercial parachute activities such as tandem jumps are expected to have contingency plans to cover "inadvertent water entry".
The agency will review any recommendations from its accident inquiries to assess whether new rules are needed relating to recreational jumps such as Muriwai.
After being provided with video of Creane spinning out of control by the Herald on Sunday, investigators are now reviewing the footage to determine whether to reopen the investigation into his death.
There have been more than a million parachute jumps completed in the past decade, with five fatalities.
The CAA says the ratio of accidents and serious incidents to actual parachuting descents is among the lowest in the developed world, underscoring the industry's high safety standards.
But those statistics are little comfort to three families mourning the loss of their loved ones.
