The Region - News from Jan. 2, 1986

A San Diego woman making a nighttime jump over Perris was killed in the first minute of the new year when her parachute failed to open. Gloria Radford, 32, plunged to earth just a minute after midnight near the Perris Valley Airport and Parachuting Center, a spokesman for the Riverside County coroner said. Radford, her husband and 20 other jumpers were trying to form an aerial star at midnight to mark the beginning of the new year, said Deputy Coroner Rick Bogan. “She drifted away from the others . . . (and) for unknown reasons she failed to pull (the ripcord to open) her chute. We examined the chute later,” Bogan said, “and both her main parachute and her reserve chute were in good condition.” Radford, who worked as an air traffic controller in the San Diego area, was a veteran of more than 1,000 jumps, Bogan said.