🔗 Share this article

Federal aviation authorities is looking into the fatality of a skydiving instructor following he got detached from his client during a dive in Nashville, Tennessee.

Police report instructor the instructor "appears to have dropped from the air without a parachute" during the dive on the weekend.

The instructor, 35 years old, seems to have separated from his client and a tandem rig, which links the two during a dive and contains the safety gear.

A police helicopter found the instructor's remains in a wooded area some time after. Local emergency crews used several ladders to reach the middle-aged student who lived through the fall after being trapped on a tree branch for hours with the emergency parachute.

Officials said three other dives, which took place near a local airport, were carried out without incident before the fatal fall. Aircraft from which they jumped also landed safely.

It is unclear how Mr Fuller, an seasoned parachutist, became separated from the safety equipment.

A man who helped rescue teams in the rescue informed a local television station the student who officials saved said "he was a first-time jumper, and it was going to be his last".

The instructor had recently written about his passion for instructing people how to skydive.

"Teaching people to skydive has consistently been in my opinion the most satisfying role at the drop zone," Mr Fuller wrote in an social media update in the summer.

"Observing students figure it out and begin maneuvering their bodies is consistently a touching moment. Sometimes though, it can get a little hectic up there when you release a student for their initial attempt."

That same month he posted photos of the wreckage a jump aircraft he was on saying the plane's engine had failed after departure. All 20 people aboard survived.