Pilot Dies in Niagara Falls Crash Moments After Dropping Off Skydivers

A young New York pilot was tragically killed when her small plane crashed just moments after a group of skydivers jumped from her aircraft on Saturday morning, authorities said.

Melanie Georger, 26, was a licensed commercial pilot for single-engine and multi-engine planes and a certified flight instructor when her small Cessna plane crashed onto the Niagara Scenic Parkway, the New York Post reported. 

The Niagara County Sheriff’s Communications Center began receiving 911 calls reporting the crash, which resulted in a brush fire, at around 11:40 a.m., police said in a press release:

​The initial investigation revealed that the plane had taken off from Skydive the Falls in Youngstown, had released all the divers, and was heading back to land when the crash occurred. 

“The pilot was the only person onboard at the time of the crash and was killed,” the sheriff’s office declared. 

Police also noted that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) had both been alerted to the incident and that the scene would be “secured until a complete investigation can be performed.”

The Youngstown Volunteer Fire Company extinguished the fires at the scene, officials added.

While Georger’s name was not mentioned in the first release, the sheriff’s office released her identity in a Sunday follow-up post after her family was notified of her death.

She was from Tonawanda, in Erie County.

“Where it landed was just off the parkway. We look to the west near Fort Niagara, it’s full of soccer players today,” Niagara County Sheriff Michael Filicetti told WIVB. “We’re lucky where it landed, but it is an unfortunate incident.”

Jeffrey Walker was one of the skydivers who leapt out of Georger’s plane just thirty minutes before it went down. 

“It’s just an eerie feeling that I was on that plane literally a half-hour before it crashed. Why didn’t it crash with us on it? Why didn’t it crash with more people on it? It’s surreal,” he told the outlet.

“It was great weather, low winds, very calm winds. Everybody was excited. Everybody was in a good mood,” Walker said.

He also gave Georger “props for wanting to do what she was doing.”

“I really feel bad for the business and the company she was working for, because they’re a great company,” the skydiver said. “I thought they did a great job training.”

Walker added that “this is a fluke accident. Something went wrong.”

The promising pilot’s father, Paul Georger, posted a heartbreaking tribute to his daughter on Facebook after he received the tragic news:

Friends and family, my life as I know it ended today. My beloved daughter, my best friend and one of the two lights of my life passed away suddenly today. Melanie was a pilot, on the cusp of realizing her dream to fly for the airlines. She was doing what she loved, flying for a local skydiving company, when her plane crashed. She had discharged her passengers and was flying back to pick another load when she crashed. Kelli, Tim and I are devastated. She was only 26. My life is much darker today and will remain so for a long time. To my tweety pie, my girlie, my beloved and my heart, I’m already looking forward to the day that we reunite and I will have a huge hole in my heart and a never ending ache until then. Stars and butterflies, my love.

Melanie Georger’s LinkedIn page shows she had a bachelor’s degree in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the University of Buffalo and a certificate from the Georgia Institute of Technology for “fundamentals of flight test and evaluation.”

She also formerly worked for Delta Air Lines as a ramp agent and for Raytheon Technologies as a systems engineer. 

The FAA confirmed that Georger was flying a single-engine Cessna 208B, and that the NTSB will be in charge of a joint investigation into the matter.