A devastated family in Edmonton is planning a funeral after a man they describe as outrageously adventurous died Saturday evening in a skydiving jump gone wrong.

John Scott was an experienced skydiving instructor at Skydive Eden North, a parachuting facility northwest of Edmonton.

On Saturday evening, the first day of the 2013 season for Eden North, the 49-year-old finished off the day by performing a solo jump into calm, blue skies.

Scott’s parachute deployed as expected and he then began a series of manoeuvres, but something went wrong at the landing.

Lyal Waddell, president of Skydive Eden North and one of Scott’s closest friends, told CTV Edmonton that everything looked good during the jump right until the landing.

“The experienced guys who saw it said everything looked like Johnny. He took the turn and he was coming in real sweet and very fast,” he said.

But he says Scott somehow “missed his flare,” meaning he wasn’t able to use his equipment fast enough to pull down the back of his chute and slow himself down. He hit the ground “very hard,” Waddell said.

He says staff at the facility rushed over and found Scott bloodied, bruised and having trouble breathing after the impact. He was rushed to hospital, but died about an hour later.

Waddell says it’s not exactly clear what went wrong because there’s no video of the accident, but he suspects Scott somehow made a timing error.

“You wouldn’t have expected him to miss and who knows what really happened on the bottom end,” Wadell said.

Waddell said his friend’s death is a big loss to the tight-knit skydiving community. According to Eden North’s website, Scott had been skydiving since 1984 and had completed more than 9,000 jumps.

Waddell said Scott had experience across a wide range of skydiving and was dedicated and focused to improving his skills.

“Where the greatest injuries are happening right now is (with) highly qualified experienced people with over 500 jumps,” Waddell said.

Scott was a retired Canadian Forces member and a former member of the Canadian Forces parachute demonstration team, the SkyHawks.

Scott's cousin, Brenda Lachance, told CTV News she is devastated by the loss and that the family is now making funeral arrangements.

She says she’ll remember Scott as a happy person to be around who just loved skydiving.

“It was his passion. So he died doing what he loved doing,” Lachance said.

With a report from CTV Edmonton’s Jeff Harrington