Betiana Namambwe Mubili: Zambian-born army officer dies in parachuting accident 

A father is mourning the death of his 29-year-old daughter, a military medic, after she died Sunday evening in a parachuting mishap in the Ottawa Valley.

Betiana Namambwe Mubili, of Petawawa, Ont., was performing a solo jump around 6 p.m. when something went wrong.

She landed in a field off Black Bay Road, which runs between Warpath Trail and Petawawa Boulevard, just south of Petawawa, Ontario Provincial Police said in a media release.

Renfrew County paramedics took her to hospital but she died a short time later, police said.

Woman’s father in shock

Her father, Viktor Mubili, told CBC News Monday he was in shock over her death.

“She was a good girl … she loved church and she loved the people at church. She loved life,” he said.

Betiana, who went by “Betty” in her family, moved to Canada from Zambia in 2002 and graduated from high school in Mississauga, Ont., before joining the Canadian Armed Forces in 2006, her father said.

As a medic, she went on a tour of duty in Afghanistan between 2013 and 2014, he said.

She loved sports, including running cross-country, and playing basketball. It was that love of sports, he said, that kept her in the Armed Forces.

Started parachuting about a year ago

“She was into sports and I think that kind of excited her. You know the way the military is structured, even the medics do military training to keep them in shape,” he said.

“She was enjoying the military life and the camaraderie in the military.”

She had only started parachuting about a year ago, her father said.

Viktor said police told him Betiana had an equipment failure with her parachute and that an autopsy would be completed Tuesday or Wednesday.

The Transportation Safety Board was notified of the mishap and OPP continue to investigate.

Source: CBC News