A Brooklyn man died in a skydiving accident when he plummeted to the ground in New Jersey after his parachute apparently failed to open properly.
Arkady Shenker, 49, landed in a southern Jersey backyard at around 2 p.m., the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office said.
“We saw him coming down. He was going around and around and the chute was here and he was here,” witness Lamont Dye told Philadelphia’s NBC 10.
“As soon as I saw that, I knew he was in trouble.”
Medics transported Shenker via helicopter to Kennedy Hospital in Washington Township. He was pronounced dead at 3:38 p.m., the TV station said.
Officials said Shenker was an experienced skydiver with more than 350 jumps.
He was wearing a “wing suit,” which allows a skydiver to move forward while descending.
A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said federal authorities will investigate the accident.
Shenker was skydiving from a plane operated by Freefall Adventures in Monroe, along with 15 other participants.
The skydiving company’s Web site claims it has a “long history of providing top quality tandem skydiving and skydiving lessons for people from all over the Northeast.”
Shenker, who lived in Bensonhurst, had arrived at Freefall’s center alone, authorities said.