Airman dies in rappelling demonstration at Navy football game

A service member with an Air Force special warfare training unit died Saturday when they fell while rappelling from the rafters of a football stadium in San Antonio, Texas. The airman was part of a pregame demonstration of military skills at the city’s 64,000-seat Alamodome before a game in which the U.S. Naval Academy was the visiting team.

A spokesperson for Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, confirmed that a service member assigned to the 6th Combat Training Squadron, Detachment 2, died from injuries sustained in the fall prior to the game between the University of Texas at San Antonio and the Naval Academy.

The 6th Combat Training Squadron trains service members from across the military as terminal air controllers, troops trained in both ground combat operations and the technical skills of directing strike aircraft over a battlefield. The unit’s Detachment 2 is based at Lackland Air Force Base, about 12 miles from the Alamodome, where it runs the selection and initial training courses for airmen hoping to qualify as Tactical Air Control Party, or TACPs, a terminal air control job within the service’s special warfare corps.

The incident happened during a pregame rappelling demonstration ahead of UTSA’s annual Salute to Armed Forces & Veterans game. Four military members were to rappel from the rafters of the Alamodome to the playing field. Catwalks in the stadium’s rafters are about 160 feet above the playing field, according to the stadium’s technical manual.

According to an account from a reporter with the San Antonio Express-News, the airman was halfway through the descent when they began to slide in “an uncontrolled manner” and hit the ground hard. Football staff and medical personnel rushed to the injured man and the injured airman was taken away on a stretcher in a cart.

The San Antonio Fire Department told Task & Purpose that it transported a person with a life-threatening injury to a hospital. The Air Force later confirmed that the airman had died.

“The incident is under investigation. More information will be released as it becomes available,” the Nellis spokesperson said.

The Air Force did not identify the deceased.

Prior to the Air Force’s announcement that the service member had died, a spokesperson for UTSA athletics confirmed that the rappel team was made up of members of 6th Combat Training Squadron, Detachment 2.

The 6th Combat Training Squadron is based at Nellis Air Force Base. Detachment 2 operates from Joint Base San Antonio-Camp Bullis, a field training range about 20 miles north of the city. 

This is a developing story.