The two expert parachutists Ermes Zampa (70 years old) and Violetta Laiketsion (63 years old) died in a dramatic accident during a jump in Fano, in the Marche region, on Sunday 14 December 2025. According to the testimonies of those present, in particular Roberto Mascio, director of the local parachute school, the caps of the two parachutes would have collided at around 40-50 meters from the ground, causing the entanglement of the cables with the consequent collapse of the caps, without the two expert parachutists having time to intervene in any way. At the moment the hypotheses of a technical malfunction or illness therefore seem to be excluded, but the exact dynamics of the accident will be reconstructed only at the end of the investigations which have already been started by the Carabinieri.
We therefore do not intend to explain how the tragic accident occurred but simply explain from a scientific point of view why the collision of two parachutes can be so dangerous even for experienced parachutists and cause an almost total loss of control.
Conceptually, a parachute works by increasing the air’s resistance to falling due to its surface area. In fact, while a body falls in the air, two main forces act on it: the weight force which pushes it downwards, and the friction with the air which acts in the opposite direction to the motion and therefore slows down the fall. In this tug-of-war between gravity and friction, the parachute gives a huge assist to friction. In fact, by opening, the surface exposed to the air drastically increases, and aerodynamic friction increases as the surface increases. This is enough to bring the speed of a parachutist from around 200 km/h to 15-20 km/h.
To function, a parachute therefore needs a large surface area. But what keeps the canopy of a parachute deployed? The tension of the ropes that anchor him to the parachutist. This is why it is very dangerous if two parachutes get their cables tangled: by intertwining, they prevent the sail from unfolding and this compromises its ability to offer surface to the air. As Emanuele Bielli, parachuting instructor and secretary of the AIP (Association of Parachuting Instructors), explained to us, «the parachute fabric is made of nylon soaked in silicone and, therefore, has zero porosity. However, this fabric works when there is tension on the ropes and, therefore, when the sail is taut. The moment the ropes lose this tension – when there is, for example, a collision, a collision with another parachutist – then the fabric deflates and therefore no longer has that characteristic of a brake, of a static anchor that manages to slow the downward fall”.
In short, if the ropes lose their tension, the sail deflates and the parachute is no longer able to generate aerodynamic friction: the parachutist accelerates downwards essentially in free fall. One of the main safety rules for those who dive with a parachute is to keep a safe distance from other parachutists, precisely to avoid this type of accident. In fact, the launches take place a few seconds apart from each other in order to keep everyone at different altitudes. Unfortunately, it can sometimes happen that different canopy release times can “align” two paratroopers, as happened yesterday in Fano.
When the lines of a parachute become intertwined, there are emergency procedures that can be adopted; however, as long as they work they must be applied between 1000 and 500 meters above sea level in order to have time to avoid the worst. When their ropes intertwined, Zampa and Laiketsion were instead 40-50 meters above the ground. Considering their initial velocity and gravitational acceleration, this means they had just over 3 seconds to crash to the ground at tens of km/h.
“In this type of accident, the first rule is to understand how the collision occurred and how the parachutes became intertwined,” the instructor explained to us. «In the event that one of the two parachutists is free from any entanglement with the ropes or fabric, then he can unhook himself from the main parachute harness and subsequently open the emergency parachute. The other parachutist, obviously, must also free himself and in this case he can use abladeinserted into the harness specifically to cut parts of ropes if necessary. On the contrary, in the event that the two parachutes become intertwined with each other and therefore do not provide the possibility of supporting the people attached, then the emergency parachute must be opened immediately. Because, actually, the only thing that saves lives is having an open parachute – totally or partially – which slows down the descent towards the ground.”
With the tragic accident that occurred in Fano, the number of fatal parachute accidents in Italy increased: «In the last 4 years in Italy there has been an average of 1 fatal accident per year. In September 2025 there had already been a fatal accident on the outskirts of Rome, during which a 49-year-old man lost his life. And the statistics show how the greatest number of accidents happen to experienced parachutists, thanks to an underestimation of the risk – linked to experience – but also an overestimation of one’s ability to react in the face of emergency situations”.
Looking instead at the statistics of larger countries, 9 fatal accidents occurred in the United States in all of 2024, a historic low for the last decade.
In short, skydiving remains an extreme and dangerous sport: however, also thanks to the continuous updating of emergency procedures and new training methods, the number of accidents has drastically decreased compared to the past.
