Warner Robins instructor killed in ‘tragic’ skydiving accident was an ‘amazing human’

Nick Esposito, one of two people killed in a skydiving accident Sunday near the Thomaston-Upson County Airport, was an experienced skydiver and instructor whose joy was sharing his passion with others, his wife said.

Kristina Esposito, an Air Force acquisitions officer at Robins Air Force Base, said she and Nick Esposito had moved to Warner Robins about a year ago.

“He was a truly amazing human,” said Kristina Esposito. “He just lived life.

“He cared about everybody else — truly, truly cared about everybody else. He just put everyone else first. His goal in life was to make sure everyone had a really good time,” she said.

Esposito, 35, an employee of Skydive Atlanta, was conducting a “tandem jump” in which he and Jeanna Triplicata, 18, an inexperienced skydiver, were attached to a tandem parachute rig, Upson County Sheriff Dan Kilgore said in a news release.

After the jump, the primary parachute failed to open properly and went into a spin, according to the release. The emergency parachute did not deploy until extremely low altitude and did not fully open.

The skydivers were found in a field on Rocky Bottom Road not far from the airport by sheriff’s deputies.

Parachute malfunction suspected

“The event was a tragic, tragic accident as we are determining at this point,” said Upson County Deputy Coroner Craig Stubbs. “I think that is a reliable estimation of what happened.

“There was a malfunction with the parachute — the primary chute — immediately after it was deployed and the emergency shoot — the backup chute — did not deploy in enough time to slow the fall,” he said.

Authorities were working with the Federal Aviation Administration, which is expected to send a subject matter expert to help “review all of the rigging and equipment and see if they can tell us why the failure occurred,” Kilgore told the Telegraph.

Esposito had been with Skydive Atlanta, which which operates out of the Thomaston-Upson County Airport, since Oct. 29, 2019. He was also videographer and he taught the accelerated free fall courses, his wife said.

He previously was a skydive instructor and videographer at Start Skydiving in Middletown, Ohio, and before that, he was a parachute rigger and tandem instructor at SkyDance SkyDiving in California.

Guessing, Kristina Esposito said, he probably had made between 4,000 and 5,000 jumps.

Remembering Nick Esposito

“Nick was a professional,” she said. “He did everything in his power that the folks he jumped with were safe and taken care of and just enjoyed the hell out of that ride ... Something unfortunately went really wrong.”

Nick Esposito was an electrician when he met Kristina on an airplane when they both lived in Hawaii. They were seated on the same aisle with an empty seat between them, and hit it off, she said.

The couple, who have been together for 10 years, wed Sept. 21, 2013.

“His favorite thing was just to see someone smile, to see them enjoy it, to teach them his passion,” she said.

She said she’ll miss most “his energy and zest for life.”

“He just had an amazing presence about him, and he was just always looking for the next great thing to do even if it was growing our own tomato plants in the backyard and we could say we were our own farmers,” she said.

From talking with his family, friends and colleagues at Skydive Atlanta, Nick Esposito was “a great personality” as well as an experienced skydiver and instructor, Stubbs said.

“This is one of those cases that just really tugs on your heart strings, and it’s one that after even 30-plus years doing medical-legal investigations as a coroner, this one will stay with me awhile,” Stubbs said.

This story was originally published July 15, 2020 at 7:15 AM.