FOX Nashville reporter Kelly Avellino says new information from the FAA is shedding light on a deadly skydiving incident near Nashville that happened back in October.
This wasn’t a story about a parachute failing to open in the sky. It was a story about something going wrong at the worst possible moment – right as an instructor and student exited the aircraft.
Avellino reports the pair were jumping in tandem, harnessed together, when a strap caught on a step along the plane.
What followed, according to the FAA report Avellino obtained, was a harrowing 10-minute struggle, captured on a GoPro.
The struggle ended with instructor Justin Fuller, 35, falling to his death, while the student survived after a reserve chute deployed.
The details are hard to even picture, because most people think of skydiving as one clean moment: jump, open, float, land.
Avellino’s reporting shows how quickly that clean moment can turn into chaos.
The Moment Everything Went Wrong At The Door
Kelly Avellino says the flight took off from John C. Tune Airport on October 4 while Fuller was instructing with Go Skydive Nashville.
Fuller, nicknamed “Spidey,” was doing what he normally did – teaching.
But Avellino says the FAA report describes a sudden snag after the pair exited the aircraft.
According to the report, the pilot observed that a leg strap from the harness got hung up on the aircraft’s step.
Instead of cleanly dropping away from the plane, the instructor and student were caught.
And when you’re caught on the outside of a plane, the clock moves in a terrifying way.
Seconds feel like minutes. Minutes feel like forever.
Avellino reports the pilot tried to shake them loose, but it didn’t work.
That detail alone is chilling, because it tells you this wasn’t a quick “oops” that fixed itself. It was a stuck, unstable situation, with two human beings hanging from a moving aircraft.
Ten Minutes That Must Have Felt Like An Hour
Kelly Avellino says the student, a 46-year-old man, described being suspended upside down during the ordeal.
In the FAA report, the student said he could feel Fuller “jerking and moving around” for roughly 10 minutes.
Think about what that means. A person is upside down, strapped in, not fully sure what’s happening, while the instructor behind him is fighting the harness, fighting the angle, fighting the plane itself.
Avellino reports the GoPro footage – worn on Fuller’s wrist – captured the struggle.
The FAA document described “approximately 10 minutes” of Fuller trying to separate himself and the student from the aircraft until he became dislodged from his harness and departed the plane.
Ten minutes is an eternity when you’re dangling.
It’s also long enough for fear to settle in, for strength to fade, and for decisions to get brutally simple: someone has to survive this.
Avellino’s report makes it sound like the student’s body position alone—hanging upside down – would have made breathing harder and thinking harder.
And that’s before you even consider the cold wind, the speed, the panic, and the physical strain.
The Signal That Said Everything Without Words
One of the most haunting pieces of Kelly Avellino’s reporting comes from what the pilot said he saw.
Avellino reports the pilot stated that Fuller motioned with a hand signal to “cut him loose.”
That isn’t a normal request.
That’s a last-resort request.
It suggests Fuller understood time was running out, and he may have been trying to give the student a chance to live – even if the instructor didn’t.
But Avellino also says the pilot did not act on that signal.
The pilot feared losing control of the plane. That part matters, because it’s easy for outsiders to say, “Why didn’t he do it?” But if a pilot loses control, then everyone else on board could die too.
So the pilot, according to the FAA report Avellino describes, chose not to cut Fuller loose and had to retreat back toward the cockpit.
From the outside, it’s a horrible choice either way. And from inside a cockpit, with an aircraft that still has to stay airborne, it’s the kind of choice that can haunt a person.
Avellino’s report doesn’t paint the pilot as careless. It paints the moment as impossible.
The Instructor’s Final Move And The Student’s Survival
Kelly Avellino reports that at some point, Fuller managed to free himself from the harness.
The FAA report, as Avellino explains it, does not spell out exactly how he did it.
But the result was clear. Fuller separated from the harness system, fell from the aircraft, and died.
The student was left with what Avellino calls the “sole reserve parachute.”
Avellino reports the student survived and landed with the parachute, though the incident still ended with the student suspended in a tree.
A person can “survive” a fall and still carry the trauma of it forever. A reserve chute deploying is not the same as a calm, planned landing.
It’s survival, not comfort.
And Avellino’s reporting makes it hard to ignore what this looks like from a human perspective: a trained instructor fighting for long minutes, then making a move that saved the student’s life but cost his own.
That isn’t just a mechanical failure story. That’s a sacrifice story.
What The FAA Noted About The Plane And The Step
Kelly Avellino says the FAA report included a key line that will jump out to anyone wondering if the aircraft had a known issue.
The report outlined: “No discrepancies noted in the maintenance records.”
That doesn’t mean the incident wasn’t preventable. It just means the paperwork didn’t show an obvious maintenance lapse.
Avellino also reports that investigators observed something specific about the aircraft’s step. The step on the right-hand main landing gear was seen rotated forward from its normal position.
That’s the kind of detail that makes people ask more questions, not fewer.
Was the step rotated before the jump?
Did it shift during flight?
Did the rotation make it easier for the harness strap to snag?
Avellino says the report doesn’t fully explain how the pair became tangled on the step or how Fuller managed to release himself. And that lack of clarity is frustrating, because when tragedy happens, people want a clean cause.
They want a “this bolt failed” moment. But sometimes you get a different kind of answer: a chain of small factors, stacking up at exactly the wrong time.
The Company Response And What Comes Next
Kelly Avellino reports she reached out to Go Skydive Nashville with direct questions.
How did they believe Fuller was able to free himself?
How did the pair get tangled on the step?
The company’s owner, Robert Hill, did not agree to an interview, Avellino says, but he provided a statement.
In that statement, Hill said the FAA report confirmed the aircraft was properly maintained and that no discrepancies were found in maintenance records.
Hill also described the incident as a “complex and rapidly evolving emergency.”
According to Avellino’s reporting, Hill emphasized that the student’s reserve parachute deployed successfully and the student survived.
He also said the company was reviewing the FAA’s findings carefully and would evaluate improvements that could strengthen training and operations.
That’s the right kind of statement to put out after something like this.
But it’s also the kind of statement that leaves a tight knot in your stomach, because the public still wonders: what change could possibly be enough after a death like this?
If a strap can catch on a step and trap two people outside a plane, then every tandem jump feels more fragile than people want to admit.
Who Justin Fuller Was Before That Day
Kelly Avellino doesn’t describe Fuller as a reckless thrill-seeker. She describes him as a professional.
Fuller had more than 5,000 jumps, Avellino reports, and he trained military and rescue personnel. That matters because it frames him as someone who didn’t just love the sky – he treated it like serious work.
Avellino also included the voice of Luke Goodion, a friend of Fuller’s since college, who said it was “shocking,” but added: “I know he was doing what he loved.”
It’s a line that people often say after a sudden death.
But in this case, it lands differently. Because “doing what he loved” also meant doing what he believed in: teaching, guiding, protecting the person attached to him.
Avellino reports that Fuller’s family told FOX 17 he was being honored by military members in Florida – people he helped train for parachuting missions.
That detail says something important.
This wasn’t a man who showed up and tried skydiving for fun.
This was a man who built a life around safety, training, and responsibility.
Which is why the ending feels so heavy. A person can do everything right for years, and still get caught by one twisted moment.
The Hardest Part Of The Story
Kelly Avellino’s reporting leaves you with a brutal image: a man trying to solve an unsolvable problem while hanging off a plane.
The FAA report describes the student upside down, feeling Fuller struggle for ten minutes, then suddenly no longer feeling him there.
That gap – one second of pressure, the next second of nothing – might be what the student remembers for the rest of his life.
And for everyone reading, it forces an uncomfortable thought.
Modern life teaches us to trust systems. Harnesses. Procedures. Checklists. Maintenance logs.
Those things matter, and they save lives every day.
But Avellino’s report is a reminder that sometimes survival comes down to one person’s last decision in the air, when there is no perfect option left.
If Fuller truly signaled to “cut him loose,” and then later managed to separate himself so the student could live, that reads like the final act of an instructor who never stopped being an instructor – even when the sky turned into a trap.
Mark grew up in the heart of Texas, where tornadoes and extreme weather were a part of life. His early experiences sparked a fascination with emergency preparedness and homesteading. A father of three, Mark is dedicated to teaching families how to be self-sufficient, with a focus on food storage, DIY projects, and energy independence. His writing empowers everyday people to take small steps toward greater self-reliance without feeling overwhelmed.
