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The 30-year-old sky diver who died after suffering critical injuries Tuesday during a sky-diving accident near Dillingham Airfield had survived three deployments to Afghanistan, was an Army airborne school graduate and an elite Army Ranger.
Martin Monahan, who was from Stuart, Fla,, was a captain stationed at Schofield Barracks with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, where he served as a transportation officer, an Army spokesman said.
He was first stationed at Schofield in 2010, and had served three combat tours to Afghanistan.
The Federal Aviation Administration has reviewed a video showing that the sky diver struck the aircraft’s horizontal stabilizer, or tailplane, while exiting the plane, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said in an email.
Emergency Medical Services officials reported the incident at 11:50 a.m. Tuesday and said the hard landing occurred in a field about 300 yards away from the airfield.
He was taken to the hospital, where he died Wednesday.
Monahan jumped out of a Skydive Hawaii airplane. A company representative could not be reached for comment.
Monahan had been trained as an airborne soldier and "jumped out of planes," Army spokesman Capt. Evan Scritchfield said.
Scritchfield said being an airborne soldier is "not like jumping out of a plane in the civilian world."
"It is regimented, and there are certain things that happen in the military that don’t necessarily happen in the civilian world," he said.
Monahan was also qualified as a U.S. Army Ranger, an elite Army organization, Scritchfield said.
Monahan graduated from the Citadel in 2005 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant.
His brother, Matthew, in Florida, told the Star-Advertiser their parents are in Hawaii, but declined to comment Friday.
He is also survived by a child, but no further details are known, Scritchfield said.
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