Skydiving Accident Near Nashville Kills Instructor, Student Rescued

A skydiving accident Saturday near John C. Tune Airport/Ashland City Highway left 35-year-old instructor Justin Robert Fuller dead and his tandem student rescued after the pair became stuck on the edge of a plane and separated from their rig. First responders found the student lodged in a tree with an open parachute; Nashville Fire Department crews used ladders and a pulley system to free him, and he was taken to a hospital in stable condition. Fuller was later located by a Metro police helicopter in a wooded clearing and was believed to have fallen without a parachute. The jump was part of a group out of John C. Tune operated by Go Skydive Nashville; three other jumpers and the aircraft landed safely. Friends remembered Fuller (nicknamed “Spidey”) as an experienced jumper with thousands of jumps, and sources close to the case say the recovered harness equipment from the surviving student was not reportedly broken. The Federal Aviation Administration—and in some reports the National Transportation Safety Board—have opened investigations into the incident.