Authorities Suspect Suicide

In a strange turn of events for a group of people flying over the Kansas countryside, a pleasure flight turned into a grisly suicide on Monday afternoon. The Topeka Capitol-Journal reports a man was killed in an apparent suicide Monday when he jumped from an airplane flying at about 2,500 feet in southeast Geary County (KS).

Geary County sheriff's officials weren't releasing the name or age of the man, whom Sheriff Jim Jensen said was one of three people on a plane that took off from Manhattan Regional Airport. Officials said his department received information at about 2:15 p.m. that someone may have committed suicide by jumping from the skies above the area of Humboldt Creek Road, south of Interstate 70 in southeast Geary County.

After the call, sheriff's deputies conducted a search that involved fixed-wing aircraft and a Kansas Highway Patrol helicopter. The man's body was spotted by aircraft at about 4:30 p.m. The newspaper did not disclose if the man said anything to the plane's occupants before jumping.

FMI: http://skyways.lib.ks.us/counties/GE