The Piper's wreckage lay Monday in woods one mile from the airport, its nose dug into the ground and its wing wrapped around a tree. Guzzetti said part of its rudder and the entire vertical tail fin, a three-foot-tall triangle of aluminum, were ripped off the craft. Authorities said there was no sign of fire.

Investigators said they could not immediately determine why the pilots were unaware of each other.

"All he keeps talking about is seeing thatplane coming at him," said Peters' wife, Joyce."He tried to get out of the way as best he could,but there wasn't much he could do and it hit hisankle"

The Piper's pilot, who was not required to filea flight plan, was flying under visual rules,Culver said. The Piper was flying about 15 milesnorth of a straight line between Boston andPoughkeepsie.

But it was not clear if the Piper's pilot wascomplying with flight rules by keeping his radiotuned for warnings as he entered the designatedjump zone, which extends three miles from theairport in all directions.

A management official at Northampton Airport,speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Piperdid not radio down to the airport to check for anypotential dangers, as some other pilots do."That's like driving through a shopping centerlike it's a highway," the official said.

"All can think of is the pilot may have beenoff course and did not know his location," saidDave Strickland, owner of the airport's sky-divingoperation Airborne Adventures. "We know he had amap out, because that was found in his lap at thecrash scene."

He said the jump zone was clearly marked on themap as an area to avoid. Also, the Piper's pilotapparently was not in radio contact with the localairport, and he wasn't listening to the frequencyon which the sky-diving pilot notified local airtraffic of the planned jump, Strickland said.

He said it appeared the plane came from behindand underneath his company's plane.

"The odds of a skydiver hitting an airplane areabout the same as a meteor hitting your car,"Strickland said. "We do 10,000 jumps a year...andwe've never had anybody come close to one of thejumpers in freefall before."

Strickland, who was one of five on the plane tojump after Peters, said he and the other jumperssaw nothing. But the plane's pilot saw the Pipercrash.

The pilot, who apparently had no idea the planehad collided with Peters, sent emergency radiomessages to the local airport and Bradley Field,then circled the crash site and guided emergencyvehicles by radio, Strickland said.

Peters, who was listed in stable condition atCooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, declinedto speak to reporters. But it seemed likely thatthe machine shop owner will now have more time forhis work.

"I don't think he'll be doing it again," hiswife said of his skydiving.

As is routine in the case of fatal crashes, theNational Transportation Safety Board will conductan investigation into the crash, Culver said.Findings should be made public within three to sixmonths.

This story was written with wire dispatchesfrom the Associated Press.