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There are stories of close calls, and I've read a few about Elsinore, but this type of collision is extremely rare. Its hitting the skydiving community pretty hard, since Gus was well known.

Here's a little snippet from someone on dropzone.com discussing the situation:

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Re: [GreenLight] Gus Wing Hit By Otter At Deland - NEW [In reply to]
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__Here at Perris we have 5 aircraft not including the JET. At any given time there can me 3 or more aircraft in the air going up or coming down. Our landing area is right next to the runway by the way. How can you expect all these aircraft to wait untill all skydivers are down before landing. Economics won't allow this with gas prices the way they are and the growing neighborhood around us wouldn't like all the extra noise from planes circling. You can't cover all the bases and make everyone safe. Each individual has to think for themselves and try and keep out of the way of aircraft and other skydivers in the air.

Time will tell if the FAA agrees with your logic. Seems like they might consider this a good argument for moving landing areas off of airports, which has happened at some CA dz's.

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I've landed after the plane that I jumped out of many times. Yikes. Guess I'll really have to start paying closer attention to winds aloft from here on out.