Capotorto Vitantonio; suicide by parachute

| July 16, 2017

Time reports that skydiver, Capotorto Vitantonio, 27 years old, an Italian national left a video message for his wife that he wasn’t going to open his parachute on his 13,500 foot jump at Skydive DeLand in Florida last Tuesday. She arrived too late at the airport to stop him and he kept his promise.

Before Vitantonio’s fatal jump, his wife Costanza Zitellini, 25, ran into the hanger and told employees not to let her husband go up in a plane, according to the report.

Zitellini said she received a video message from Vitantonio telling her that he was “not going to pull the cord and that he was going somewhere wonderful.”

A Skydive DeLand employee told police that the plane had already taken off, but she immediately radioed the plane and told the crew not to let Zitellini jump. It was too late.

Mike Johnston, the general manager, told The News-Journal that Zitellini’s message came just “moments” after he jumped.

Both Vitantonio and Zitellini worked for United Parachute Technologies in DeLand.

Category: Who knows

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IDC SARC

HANO Master!

AW1Ed

Anyone can be a HANO Master.

Once.

jonp

An exclusive club few want to join.

Doc Savage

And even fewer that walked away to tell the story in a bar.

Club Manager

You have to figure the guy had mental issues to begin with; otherwise, why would anyone want to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft?

rgr769

That trope is a little trite by now, CM. I have heard it repeatedly from civilians and NAPs (non-airborne qual’d people) for over 50 years.

IDC SARC

as is the reply…there’s no such thing as a perfectly good aircraft.

rgr769

Sure there is. It is one safely parked in a hanger.

timactual

That’s new to me. Thanks.

desert

AND still just as true as it was in the beginning!!

Hack Stone

Because Daniel Bernath is at the controls?

26Limabeans

Geez..tried to bury himself as well.

Doc Savage

13,500 ft @ 120+ mph would definitely get the job done.

Though I don’t understand why someone would choose such a messy exit…..closed casket for sure.

Condolences to his family.

1610desig

Instead of shouting “Geronimo” out the door, he shrieked “Hillary” instead…

IDC SARC

No matter how hot you think she is, somewhere there a guy that is tired of her fukking shit…and sometimes willing to to get away from her at terminal velocity.

David

While I agree with (and have used a variation of it before)your basic premise, this is a tacky time to express it. She just lost her husband and marriage to a suicide…maybe you have never had anyone close to you suicide? It’s over for the dead…but it’s never over for the living.

IDC SARC

Noted, and filed appropriately.

IDC SARC

Sapper3307

I think that’s the D.Z that SlErpManComith sleeps on the bench’s at.

Frankie Cee

Yep, though several that I have talked to tell me that he has pretty much worn out his welcome there.

A Proud Infidel®™

Where doesn’t he do that?

Silentium Est Aureum

Behind the dumpsters at the local Waffle House.

That being said, I wish the departed had not done that. The pain he inflicted on those he left behind is unfathomable.

streetsweeper

True, that!

OldManchu

Selfish prick to do it at the DZ. skydive Deland is a huge operation. It would be the equivalent of blasting ones self in a busy mall. Anyways…. Blue skies!

“It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.”

Planet Ord

I feel the same way at every suicide I work. Selfish dick. Now we have to clean up your mess and try to hide it from your family, if they haven’t seen it already. Suicide is a selfish act that devastates the loved ones left behind.

Common Sense CO

Agreed, at least in this case. And sending his wife a video beforehand was especially cruel.

IDC SARC

His remarks didn’t seem to indicate any attempt at cruelty per se, but rather IMO that he was possibly delusional.

David

Isn’t a suicide off-center by definition? Sane people don’t kill themselves.

IDC SARC

Off-center yes…but that’s a colloquialism, not a diagnosis.

Sane people do often kill themselves. Sane People commit murder. Sane people do all sorts of off the wall things. Some people are sane and nonetheless just not right.

Insane people by definition are incapable of knowing right from wrong, most often a psychotic state, state of retardation, or cognitive decline.

Even the majority of diagnosable mental illnesses do not qualify as insanity.

MSG Eric

One of my Soldiers used to work at a firing Range. Maybe once a month or so they would have someone come in and rent time on the firing line so they could shoot themselves. Fairly disturbing to have to deal with that.

IDC SARC

waste of perfectly good organs.

Commissar

Suicide is not a selfish act. I know several friends and family who committed suicide and only one was even remotely a selfish person.

When you are suffering from depression your own thoughts lie to you and distort your reality. It can be hard to bring yourself back alone and often they do not want to draw others into their reality by reaching out for help.

To dismiss someone who committed suicide as merely a selfish person not only fails to acknowledge the legitimacy of depression as a serious and dangerous mental health problem, but it increases the social stigma and shame associated with depression making it less likely someone would reach out.

IDC SARC

Suicide doesn’t have a single etiology.

IDC SARC

Suicide in a word is hopelessness.

The etiology, the circumstance of that hopelessness, is variable.

The hopelessness is an irrational perception, the suicidal act an irrational expression of that hopelessness.

There are certain certain exceptions,such as with someone suffering a terminal illness.

Commissar

Agreed. But to dismiss it as a selfish act is not accurate or helpful.

IDC SARC

Given the information available I don’t see incontrovertible evidence that it wasn’t selfish.

This is an internet forum where as far as I have seen personal opinions are not discouraged nor scrutinized for validity prior to posting, so what do expect here besides diverse opinions based on limited information?

Helpful…to whom?

Silentium Est Aureum

Fuck you it’s not selfish, Lars.

Talk to a family who has had to deal with it (as mine has) and you’ll think otherwise.

MSG Eric

As many would say, suicide doesn’t resolve the suffering, it only transfers it to someone else.

Eden

SEA, in the mind of the person committing (or attempting) suicide, he thinks he’s doing everyone around him a favor. He honestly believes everyone would be better off without him. Not remotely true, of course, but difficult to convince them, even if you get the opportunity to try.

IDC SARC

Suicides are not always done because the suicidal person even remotely gives a crap about those around them, sometimes the act itself is an act of aggression.

Wouldn’t it be great if human behavior was that simple? It’s not. The is no such thing as THE suicidal mind. There is no single motivation for rape. There is no single motivation for murder etc etc.

11B-Mailclerk

Difficult topic for me. I try to understand a couple of up close and personal events. But the more I do, the more I seem to be gazing into Nietzsche’s Abyss.

Field needs work.

IDC SARC

” Field needs work.”

What am I thinking right now? You probably don’t know.That’s a big part of the problem in mental health.:)

All problems are obvious after they’ve shown up.

11b-mailclerk

“If i had only known….”

IDC SARC

“What did I miss…”

Something I can never know, but the question will always persist.

desert

Most of the time, the mindset is “I’ll teach them!” “They will be sorry!”

streetsweeper

Myself, one living daughter, four grandchildren and two great grandchildren are dealing with my oldest offing herself. Screw you, sideway in the ear with a frozen trout, Lars. POS.

Frankie Cee

It is so refreshing to have an actual expert in the field drop by here to educate us knuckledraggers on such things as this. It is as if an elitist has offered to help the “little people” with a bit of knowledge. Whatever could we have done to deserve such a favor as this.

IDC SARC

huh?

11B-Mailclerk

In this case, he seems to be genuinely trying to help the understanding.

I doubt there are many on this forum without some unpleasant contacts with suicides.

Some times, you have to read Commissar’s posts as if they were a random stranger’s posting, to isolate the occasional thoughtful item from prior baggage.

On this topic, as long as the comments are reasonably posted, perhaps a cease-fire on past stuff is in order. This topic has probably hit just about all of us here, up close and personal, one way or another.

desert

Oh! I see, I thought his postings were the random babblings of an insane individual!

HMCS(FMF) ret

He’s playing amateur psychologist again…trying to put that Bezerkley education to “good” use.

GDContractor

The same Einstein who pinned the Orlando shootings of a year ago on a “self-loathing homophobe”. At some point, you’d think he’d evolve to read more and talk less.

Hack Stone

Next up, Lars can hold our hands as he walks us into the local sandwich shop and explains the concept of a ham and cheese on soft rye sandwich.

Graybeard

Frankie Cee, please step back, take a deep breath, and try to read Lars’ post with a reasonable mind. He and ID SARC are having a good conversation about the problems and nature of the suicidal mind.

Lars, for all of his faults, and despite the fact that I sometimes disagree with him, is not any more irrational than the rest of us.

For those who have to deal with the aftermath of a loved one’s suicide, there is anger at the fact that they did that and left us in the emotional state of grief and helplessness. This is compounded by the fact that we feel guilty about being upset at them.

For the one who is suicidal, I think that ID SARC’s observation “Suicide in a word is hopelessness.” is spot on.

Having looked into that abyss – despite being greatly loved by my family and deeply founded in my faith – that pretty well sums up what I was feeling at that time. Hopelessness and despair. It may be that some degree of selfishness is involved – wanting out of the hopelessness at any cost is arguably selfish. But who among us is not, to some degree, selfish?

I do not know what was going on in Capotorto Vitantonio’s life that led him to this point. I do know that his wife and family are suffering greatly now.

I believe that trying to come to grips with all of that is part of what both Lars and ID SARC are trying to do in a reasonable manner.

Fyrfighter

The best description I’ve heard (and as many of you may recall, I and my department are currently dealing with a suicide) is that the ACT, without question is horribly selfish… The PERSON involved may or may not be, because as many on this thread have posted, the motivations, mental state and capacity, etc. of the person vary widely from one suicide to the other, and as such, it’s impossible to make a blanket statement on the motives / state of mind of all those who choose this way out.
Just my 2c, given my recent experiences.. ymmy

Sparks

Gravity is a bitch and she works EVERY time.

1610desig

We may not like the laws of physics, but we will obey them…

Yef

Why does Skydive DeLand hire so many foreign nationals?
Don’t we have enough unemployed people here in the states?

OldManchu

It’s hip.

MSG Eric

They were trying some Italian spread.

gitrcarver

Got any evidence that Skyland Deland has hired any “Italian Nationals?”

The person in the story didn’t work for them, so did you mis-read the story, making crap up, or trolling?

Frankie Cee

He didn’t work for Skydive DeLand. He only jumped there. He worked for Unite Parachute Technologies.

Frankie Cee

“Don’t we have enough unemployed people here in the states?”
In this skill field? He was probably either a developer of new design parachutes, or testing and evaluating new design parachutes. Possibly, he was working, learning, to go back to Italy as a representative of the company and market an American Product there. It happens.

Yef

Ok, let’s see if I can translate his name.

Capotorto Vitantonio:

Capo = boss, chief, implies command

Torto = literally one-eyed, but it also means injustice, to be wronged, bad luck

Vita = Life, living

Antonio = Patrician clan name, originally means flower

So his name means….

Wrong Boss of the Flower Life?
one-eyed chief lived like a flower?

The Chief had bad luck and his life lasted like a flower???

Interesting what you can find in someone’s name…

rgr769

Maybe he was doomed to perish like a summer flower just because of his name. But then, what’s in a name? These are the important issues of our time, not RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA. This story proves fate and gravity can be harsh mistresses.

Hack Stone

Can you deconstruct the name of the Vice President of the proud woman owned business that I work for? Rumor has it that it means schmuck or fall guy in German?

HMCS(FMF) ret

Cause of death in both cases… de-acceleration trauma

IDC SARC

KE= 1/2M * V^2

Graybeard

Proof of the absolute nature of the universe?

A Proud Infidel®™

Some say that every flight is a battle with gravity and gravity wins every time in one way or another.

Green Thumb

Sad.

No winners here.

Eden

Agreed.

RCAF_CHAIRBORNE

‘ He aint gonna jump no more’

R.I.P

rgr769

He died on the Ol’ Drop Zone, but with no “blood on his risers,” cuz he never deployed his chute.

RCAF_CHAIRBORNE

When the ‘body retrieval’ requires a spatula and spill kit….
Pretty safe to say nothing that joined him in his descent, would remain unstained

Jeff LPH 3, 63-66

Remember it isn’t the fall that kills you, it’s that sudden stop. Air planes flying over the south shore of Long Island NY coming into JFK airport are supposed to drop their landing gear over the ocean before flying over Long Beach because stowaways are hiding in the wheel wells. 2 fell in Island Park a few years ago. 1 in a restaurant parking lot and another in the bay next to a guy working on his boat. Best was a lady walking her dog behind Long Beach Hospital at night and spotted a body in front of the fence that separates Reynalds channel from the rear drive way of the hospital. ER Doc thinks it’s a prank by the kids but nurse notices that it’s the real thing. LBPD call LBFD for our Floodlite truck to the scene for lighting. Nassau County harbor cop pulls up in the boat, climbs up the pier ladder and says that if the body dropped into the channel like an hour later he would have been fishing with some nice chum. While we were scarfing down donuts and coffee, NCMC Morgue truck arrives,and the guy comes over to us to see if we carried a wet vac. on our rig. Next day, a contractor was hosing down the drive way and side of the building to get all the body parts washed away. Just another night in the LBFD 233 Volly rig.