A 35-year-old man from Buffalo, N.Y., was killed in a paragliding crash Friday afternoon within The Compound area of Palm Bay, police said Saturday.
The Compound is a sprawling 12.2-square-mile undeveloped area in southwestern Palm Bay, according to News 6 partner Florida Today. This region contains more than 200 miles of roads that were built by General Development Corp., which went bankrupt in 1991.
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The fatal crash occurred just after 4:30 p.m. Friday near the intersection of Woodstock Drive and Tarbora Terrace, Palm Bay Police Lt. Jeff Spears said. This area is near the western terminus of Osmosis Drive.
Spears said Christopher Leipler was paragliding with a group of people when the crash occurred. Leipler was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Spears said Palm Bay police will try to determine why the paraglider crashed, because a paraglider accident does not fall under the investigatory criteria of the Federal Aviation Administration or the National Transportation Safety Board. “So we’re investigating it with our detectives,” he said.