Jumping out of an airplane at 14,000 feet and parachuting to earth carries its own risks, but there are also safety issues in just getting off the ground.

While it’s far too early for federal investigators to determine the cause of Friday’s crash of an Oahu Parachute Center plane that killed all 11 aboard, a 2008 special investigative report by the National Transportation Safety Board flagged recurring safety issues involving skydiving operations nationwide.

Friday’s crash occurred moments after the twin-engine Beechcraft BE65-A90 had taken off at Dillingham Airfield in Mokuleia. Officials said it could be a year or more before a final report on the cause of the tragedy is issued.

A handful of fatal skydiving incidents have occurred in Hawaii over the last 20 years, most involving jumpers who encountered trouble while or after exiting the plane.

But three years ago, four skydivers and a pilot were killed when a Cessna 182 slammed into the ground 33 seconds after takeoff from the Port Allen Airport on Kauai on May 23, 2016. Video recorded from aboard the doomed plane indicated the engine began to lose power about 24 seconds after takeoff, according to an NTSB report. Two seconds later the Skydive Kauai plane began to roll right and hit the ground nose-first.

The NTSB determined the probable cause of the fatal crash to be the pilot’s failure to maintain airspeed following the partial loss of engine power, although the reason for the engine trouble could not be determined.

Under the provisions of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91, skydiving flights that operate within 25 miles of the departure airport — as they do at Dillingham Airfield — are exempt from certain Federal Aviation Administration certification and inspection requirements for air carriers and commercial operators.

The NTSB’s 2008 special report said the rules for skydiving flights are less extensive than for other passenger-carrying operations such as air tours and air carriers and provide for inadequate FAA oversight. Two other recurring safety issues cited in the report were inadequate aircraft inspection and maintenance and deficiencies in pilot performance in basic airmanship tasks such as preflight inspections and weight and balance calculations.

Ed Scott, executive director of the U.S. Parachute Association, noted that all jump plane operations are subject to “stringent commercial requirements” that include enhanced and more frequent aircraft inspections. For example, he said, instead of annual inspections, jump aircraft must be inspected every 100 hours of flight time or be on an FAA-approved inspection program.

The USPA estimates about 264,000 jump flights a year across the country. From 2009 to 2018, there have been six fatal crashes involving skydiving aircraft, according to the association. Scott calculated a rate of 0.57 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours, “better than the overall general aviation fatal accident rate of 0.84 for 2017 (the latest data available from the FAA).”

He said skydivers are a close-knit bunch, “and our hearts go out to the family and friends of the 11 we lost in Hawaii.”

“We await the findings of the federal investigators and will share the conclusions with all skydive operators,” Scott said.

For its report, the NTSB reviewed 32 skydiving aircraft accidents from 1980 to 2008, including two in Hawaii, that killed 172 people. Eighty-five of the fatalities happened in 11 accidents in which planes crashed following a loss of engine power directly after takeoff. Maintenance or fuel-quality deficiencies were involved in most of those cases, and in nearly all the incidents, the pilots failed to maintain adequate airspeed or made other critical errors, the report said.

One of the Hawaii crashes happened May 22, 1999, when a Beechcraft B90 aircraft operated by Pacific International Skydiving plummeted into the ocean off Mokuleia after its 13 passengers had jumped from the plane. The NTSB determined the pilot had failed to use supplemental oxygen and was incapacitated due to hypoxia from repeated flights above 18,000 feet.

In the second crash, 11 members of a skydiving team, including the pilot, were killed when their twin-engine Beechcraft Delta 18 crashed into Pearl Harbor on Dec. 5, 1981. The group was supposed to parachute into Aloha Stadium before a University of Hawaii football game, but poor conditions forced them to cancel the jump.

The plane went into a dive and hit the reef off Ford Island. Four of the skydivers attempted to parachute out of the plane but only one survived.

An NTSB report cited the 20-year-old pilot’s failure to maintain air speed as the probably cause. The report also noted the pilot was unqualified to operate the plane and did not conduct appropriate pre-flight planning, and that the Beechcraft was not properly loaded.

>> This story has been updated to include information from Ed Scott, executive director of the U.S. Parachute Association.