Instructor to the End: Skydiver Who Trained Military and Rescue Personnel Dies Saving Student

Justin Fuller, a civilian parachute instructor who trained military and rescue personnel, encountered an emergency during a tandem jump with a student.

Fuller, 35, was a professional skydiver with more than 5,000 jumps. Multiple outlets including FOX 17 in Nashville reported that he regularly trained military and rescue personnel in parachuting skills. His family later told FOX 17 that military members in Florida were honoring him for that work, which points to contracted training for units that conduct operational or rescue jumps rather than recreational skydiving. No public reporting has tied him to a specific unit, but the pattern is consistent. He was a civilian subject-matter expert trusted to train people who jump for a living.

On Oct. 4, 2025, Fuller was working as a tandem instructor with Go Skydive Nashville. He and a 46-year-old first-time student exited an aircraft over Tennessee from John C. Tune Airport. Almost immediately, part of the tandem harness became snagged on a step attached to the aircraft’s right main landing gear.

According to a Federal Aviation Administration report obtained by FOX 17, the pilot saw the pair stuck on the step after exit and tried to shake them loose. When that failed, Fuller signaled for the pilot to cut them free. The pilot later told investigators he feared losing control of the aircraft and returned to the cockpit instead.
What followed lasted about ten minutes.

GoPro footage worn on Fuller’s wrist shows him fighting the entanglement while he and the student hung outside the aircraft. The student later told investigators he could feel Fuller moving and working behind him. Eventually, he felt nothing. He then saw Fuller fall away.

The FAA report states that Fuller became dislodged from the harness and separated from the student. How he did it is not specified. What is clear is the result. The student remained attached to the rig. The reserve parachute deployed. He survived, landing in a tree with minor injuries.
Fuller did not.

Separated from the harness and without a parachute of his own, he fell to his death. His body was later found in a wooded area near where the student came down.

Friends and colleagues have described Fuller’s final actions as deliberate. Faced with a situation that could have killed both of them, he solved the problem the only way left. He removed himself so the person he was responsible for could live.

That decision aligns with how military and rescue personnel are trained to think. Fix the emergency. Protect the person you are responsible for. Accept the risk yourself if that is what it takes.

For the soldiers, aircrew, and rescue professionals Fuller trained, this was not an abstract lesson. It was a man doing exactly what he taught, under the worst possible conditions, until the end.