A 26-year-old pilot with dreams of flying for commercial airlines died in a skydiving flight over the weekend when her small plane crashed near the Niagara Falls after her passengers jumped from the aircraft.
Melanie Georger, 26, was the only person onboard when her single-engine Cessna crashed on Saturday, the Niagara county, New York, sheriff’s office said in a statement. Georger, of Towanda, New York, was working to become a commercial pilot, her father said on Saturday in a statement on Facebook.
“My beloved daughter, my best friend and one of the two lights of my life passed away suddenly today,” Paul Georger wrote. “Melanie was a pilot, on the cusp of realizing her dream to fly for the airlines.
“She was doing what she loved, flying for a local skydiving company, when her plane crashed.”
The skydiving company, identified by the Niagara sheriff’s office as Skydive the Falls, did not immediately respond to email and social media messages from the Associated Press requesting comment on Sunday morning. A person answering a phone number listed on the company’s website hung up. The company advertises a scenic flyover of Niagara Falls before each skydive.
One of the skydivers on a flight with Georger right before the one that crashed said he felt blessed to be alive and lamented that her life was cut short.
“Why didn’t it happen when I was up there? Why didn’t it happen when we were all on the plane?” first-time jumper Jeffrey Walker said. He described the events as “surreal”.
He said he was unconcerned by the pilot’s youth. He added that Georger checked in with him personally and shared encouraging words about his tandem skydiving partner, boosting his confidence before he jumped.
“I give her props for wanting to do what she was doing,” he said. “I really feel bad for the business and the company she was working for, because they’re a great company. I thought they did a great job training.”
Separately, Walker told CBS affiliate WIVB: “For some reason, God left me on Earth and I’m just blessed to still be around. It’s just an eerie feeling that I was on that plane literally a half-hour before it crashed.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the airplane was a single-engine Cessna 208B.
It crashed near a road in Youngstown, fewer than 15 miles (24km) from Niagara Falls. The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation into the crash.
A Facebook post from Eagle East Aviation said Georger had held a private pilot certificate since July 2021.