Fatalities at Lodi skydiving center focus of lawsuit against parachute association
A skydiving instructor who says another man forged his signature on paperwork before two skydivers were killed in a tandem jump at the Lodi Parachute Center is suing the U.S. Parachute Association, saying he was unfairly punished after the deaths.
Yuri Garmashov, who says in court papers that he has completed more than 9,100 skydives and conducted numerous training sessions since becoming a member of the USPA in 2000, filed the suit in federal court in Sacramento alleging that he was unfairly blamed after the fatal incident despite the fact that he was out of the country at the time.
The suit alleges that Rob Pooley, another instructor whose tandem examiner rating had been suspended by the USPA, forged Garmashov’s signature on certification paperwork for the Aug. 6, 2016, jump.
“When Mr. Garmashov spoke with others in the skydiving community about the incident, Mr. Garmashov discovered that while he was out of the country for the summer, Mr. Pooley had forged his signature on the certification paperwork for the fatal skydive,” the suit alleges. “This certification paperwork with Mr. Garmashov’s forged signature was used by the skydiving instructor who was killed at the Lodi Center in the tragic accident that also took the life of another skydiver.”
The suit says that at the time of the incident, Garmashov had been out of the country for months, and that despite that fact the USPA suspended his instructor’s ratings.
USPA officials in Fredericksburg, Virginia, did not respond to a request for comment earlier this month, but Pooley denied ever having forged the signature.
“I don’t know anything about the lawsuit or what it says or didn’t say,” Pooley added. “This is news to me.”
Pooley said he is still a skydiver but not an instructor, although the center’s website listed him Friday as a wind tunnel instructor as part of a training program for tandem jumps.
Lodi Parachute Center’s owner Bill Dause also said he knew little about the allegations.
“There’s been a lot of stuff going back and forth,” Dause said.
The skydiving facility in Acampo has been the site of at least 21 deaths since 1981, according to Bee research, including the latest last September, when a 28-year-old woman drifted over nearby Highway 99 and slammed into the back of a passing bigrig truck.
The center, which is still in operation, was the site of the double fatality in 2016 when a 25-year-old instructor and an 18-yearold man making his first jump were both killed.
Garmashov alleges in his lawsuit that the USPA suspended his instructor’s ratings after a hearing in which he was not permitted to call Pooley as a witness or have his attorney present. He also alleges that the USPA did not believe his claim that he had a notarized letter from Pooley admitting to the forgery and that instead he was admonished “to tell the truth.”
“The USPA egregiously violated the membership agreement with Mr. Garmashov by failing to provide him with his contractual rights to a fair and impartial hearing process, to see the evidence against him, to have an attorney represent him, and to present evidence,” according to the lawsuit, which alleges breach of contract and gross negligence. “The USPA did so with a willful, wanton, and with a conscious disregard for Mr. Garmashov’s rights."