An Air Force member has died from injuries he suffered on Saturday while rappelling from the ceiling of the Alamodome, in San Antonio, Texas as part of a college football pre-game ceremony honoring the Armed Forces and military veterans, authorities said.
The incident occurred before a football game between Navy and UTSA. The incident occurred just before kickoff between Navy and the University of Texas at San Antonio.
“Once the band started playing, there was a guy that fell down,” witness Adrian Corey, one of more than 23,000 people who attended the game, told ABC San Antonio affiliate station KSAT.
The airman was identified as Tech. Sgt. Ian Patterson, assigned to the 6th Combat Training Squadron, Detachment 2, a spokesperson for the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, where the airman was stationed, said in a statement.
Patterson, of Fort Stewart, Georgia, had served in the Air Force for 15 years and in 2022 was named the Air Force Special Warfare Enlisted Instructor of the Year, the spokesperson noted.
PHOTO: Paramedics work on an airman who was critically injured and later died after rappelling from the ceiling of the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, October 18, 2026, as part of a Salute to Armed Forces and Veterans night. He was pronounced dead at the hospital after the fall.
Witnesses said the airman was one of three service members conducting a rappelling demonstration from the Alamodome’s ceiling, a drop of about 170 feet.
Corey, who recorded the incident on his cellphone, said he and other spectators noticed something was wrong when the airman “started coming down fast.”
San Antonio Fire Department spokesman Joe Arrington told ABC News that firefighters responded to the Alamodome around 7 p.m. local time on Saturday after getting a call about someone falling during a pre-game event.
A spokesperson for the University of Texas at San Antonio said in a statement to ESPN that students who witnessed the incident are encouraged to contact the university’s crisis hotline.
“Our heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with the soldier who was affected, his family and his military colleagues,” the UTSA spokesperson said. “We recognize that members of our campus community may be emotionally affected by this incident and are activating wellbeing services to support our faculty, staff and students.”
