SAN ANTONIO — An Air Force special warfare instructor died after falling during a pregame rappelling demonstration inside the Alamodome on Saturday evening, shortly before Texas-San Antonio played host to Navy in its yearly game saluting the armed forces and veterans.
Four service members were scheduled to descend by rope from the roof of the dome to the field roughly 15 minutes ahead of kickoff. Roughly halfway down, one of them lost control, slid along the line and slammed into the turf. He landed near the middle of the field as fans watched and the band stood nearby. The catwalks in the building sit about 160 feet above the playing surface.
Team and medical staff treated him on the field for several minutes before he was taken off on a stretcher. City fire crews transported him to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, and he died there.
On Sunday the Air Force said he was a technical sergeant and Tactical Air Control Party instructor assigned to Detachment 2 of the 6th Combat Training Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio. He had 15 years in uniform, grew up at Fort Stewart, Georgia, and was named the service's top special warfare enlisted instructor in 2022.
His squadron is headquartered at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and trains troops from every branch to direct strike aircraft from the ground. The San Antonio detachment runs the selection and early training courses for airmen trying to qualify for the TACP career field, and rapid rope descents are part of that skill set.
Kickoff was pushed back about 10 minutes, and the game went on in front of a crowd of more than 23,000. The American Conference said it chose to continue play before the death had been confirmed, pointing to league bylaws and the military's process for notifying families first.
The Air Force is investigating the fall. UTSA is offering counseling to anyone on campus shaken by what happened.
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