Who was Melissa Porter? Skydiver dies testing high-risk method of landing while trying out swooping in Texas
HOUSTON, TEXAS: An experienced skydiver lost her life while attempting a very risky activity called "swooping" in the air on June 24. Melissa Porter died in Texas after experiencing a hard landing before plunging into shallow water while doing the adventure at the Skydive Spaceland Houston facility at 16111 FM 521 Road.
ABC 13 Houston reported that the 29-year-old breathed her last at the hospital as she was rushed there after the accident. However, the exact cause of Porter’s death has not been found yet, and the Galveston County Medical Examiner's Office is reportedly working on it.
Who was Melissa Porter?
Porter was originally from Perth, Australia, and was working as an instructor at Skydive Spaceland Houston. She was also the recipient of a gold at the Australian Skydiving Championships alongside her skydiving partner Josh Tassicker in March 2023.
At the time, she told the Sound Telegraph, “We definitely didn’t expect to win. We only talked about potentially making a team like a few months before the national competition. It was a shock when we took gold but it’s been amazing — it definitely makes me want to compete further.”
Porter also added, “For so long the sport has been male-dominated. There’s this idea that women are too afraid or they’re too small, or they’re too light, all of these things and it’s absolutely not true, they are 100 percent capable. It’s really cool for me to be able to be an instructor and to show other women it’s doable. I want to continue doing that for years.”
‘She's not coming home’
Now, following her death, her grieving mother Vonnie reportedly said that she was asked to call the hospital in the US before she received the tragic news. She shared, “I said, 'I'm ringing about Mel Porter.' I said, 'She's been in a skydiving accident.’ He said, 'She is dead.’”
Vonnie also stated, “She's my baby and she's not coming home,” before adding, “That [skydiving] was her happy place. She'll forever be in the sky roaming the world now.” Besides, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said, “We send our deepest condolences to the woman's family” as the department is “providing consular assistance to the family of an Australian woman who died in the United States.”
What is swooping?
According to Skydive Tecumseh, skydiving swooping means an “advanced form of canopy piloting where an individual induces speed through specific maneuvers and dives the canopy toward the earth—all while leaving enough time for the canopy to level out and glide horizontally across the ground.”