An inquest has been opened into the death of a 22-year-old woman at a major skydiving centre.
Madeleine Trask died at Langar Airfield in Nottinghamshire on July 5 this year, a court heard today.
A coroner was told the 22-year-old suffered a head injury. No other details surrounding Ms Trask’s death were revealed during the brief hearing at Nottingham Coroner’s Court.
Karen Boyle, Assistant Coroner for Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire, adjourned the inquest to a date to be fixed, and offered her condolences to the woman’s family and friends.
According to her social media, Ms Trask had worked at Skydive Langar – based at the airfield – as a parachute packer for three-and-a-half years. She went to Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire, where fees now cost up to £10,844.27 per term, and was a former President of the University of Nottingham’s Skydiving club.
Nottinghamshire Police said in July that a 22-year-old woman had died in a ‘skydiving incident near Langar Airfield’ on July 5. The force said the woman was found in a nearby field and pronounced dead at the scene.
Langar Airfield is a former Royal Air Force (RAF) station near the village of Langar in Nottinghamshire and first opened in 1942.
Skydive Langar opened on the airfield in 1977, and is now the busiest civilian skydiving centre in the UK. It facilitates more than 50,000 jumps annually from its fleet of six light aircraft.
A spokesman for the company declined to comment on the opening of Ms Trask’s inquest today. But in a statement in the aftermath of the death at the airfield in July, the company said the fatal incident involved an ‘experienced skydiver’.
In a statement released on its social media pages, the firm added that it was ‘devastated by this tragic loss’.
An investigation was also launched by British Skydiving – which regulates the activity on behalf of the Civil Aviation Authority – after the tragedy.
A farmer who lives close to Langar Airfield told the Mail in July that a skydiver landed in a field of 2ft-high corn, on the other side of Harby Road from the airfield.
Local residents said many skydives had been completed during the morning before the tragedy occurred shortly after midday.
Nottinghamshire Police previously said on the day of the incident that officers called to Langar at 12.13pm.
Ms Boyle said today that Ms Trask was identified to a Nottinghamshire Police officer at the scene at 1.54pm.
A post-mortem examination had determined a provisional cause of death as a head injury, the coroner added.
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