New York Skydiver Unbuckles Chute, Falls to Death

NORTHUMBERLAND, N.Y. – A veteran skydiver left a suicide note before intentionally freeing himself from his parachute in midair and plunging to his death over an upstate farm, police said yesterday.

Robert Raecke, 60, of Duanesburg, unbuckled the chute after leaping from a plane at about 8,000 feet Sunday, according to Saratoga County Sheriff’s Investigator Rick Capasso.

Raecke’s body was found in a field in the Saratoga County town of Northumberland, 35 miles north of Albany.

Capasso said neither the note nor a subsequent investigation explained why Raecke killed himself.