Reported As A Plane Crash By Witnesses

A group of skydivers who jumped with pyrotechnic devices attached to their flight suits Monday evening near John C. Thune Airport in Nashville were mistaken for an airplane in distress, and that sent emergency crews scrambling.

Television station KWQC reports that witnesses saw the jumpers exit their airplane at about 8 p.m. local time, but in the dusk from 12,000 feet, they thought the streams of fire falling from the sky were an airplane going down, and called 911.

That led to the dispatch of 14 firefighting units to the airport, which the Nashville fire chief said is standard procedure for an airport call.

The skydivers had been given permission to perform the jump. They had been hired by an area church to perform the stunt as part of an event raising awareness about child abuse. The FAA had sanctioned the jump.

Fire Chief Charles Shannon said some advance notice would have been nice, but was not required.

There was no estimate of how much it cost to send 14 units out on a response to the false alarm.

FMI: www.nashfire.org