The Army’s elite parachute exhibition team is still on a safety stand down following the mid-air collision last month that killed a team member. But a decision on when to resume operations is expected later this week, a spokeswoman tells Army Times.
“A decision (on the stand down) is being made this week,” Dixon said. “We’re waiting for a higher authority to let us know when we’ll be back up and running.”
Hood died Aug. 16, a day after suffering a mid-air collision with a member of the Navy Leap Frogs at the Chicago Air & Water Show. The impact broke the Navy jumper’s leg and left Hood unconscious. Hood’s reserve parachute automatically opened when his automated system recognized that his main chute did not. He unconsciously drifted into a building and eventually fell to the ground at the foot of it.
Hood, 32, died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he had surgery to relieve pressure on the brain from his injury. The Army is continuing its investigation.
A few days after his death, Hood was posthumously promoted to master sergeant. He had been selected for promotion “for his demonstrated leadership abilities and tactical and technical expertise,” said Lt. Col. Matthew Weinrich,
the Golden Knights’ commander, in a video statement. Following the accident, the Golden Knights returned home to Fort Bragg, N.C., where they had access to counseling after the incident.
Weinrich remembered Hood as an “extraordinary soldier” who had dreamed of being a Golden Knight.
Hood, 32, had served five deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and earned numerous awards and decorations, including two Bronze Stars, according to the AP. He had logged more than 200 free-fall jumps and 75 static-line jumps during his career, according to his Army biography.
Hood is survived by his wife, Lyndsay.
The Golden Knights are part of the U.S. Army Accessions Support Brigade. Their origins date back to the Strategic Army Command Parachute Team of 1959. The team was started by Brig. Gen. George Sitwell Jr. to compete in the new Soviet-dominated sport of skydiving and help the Army develop its parachuting capabilities. STRAC was christened the U.S. Army Parachute Team in 1961 and shortly thereafter would be nicknamed the Golden Knights.
