A 55-year-old Turlock man died Sunday after his ultralight plane folded in half and fell from the sky while he did stunts 800 feet above the New Jerusalem Airport southeast of Tracy.

The pilot was doing flips in the small plane shortly after 2:30 p.m. when one of its wings snapped, Mike Jefferson, a hang gliding instructor who witnessed the crash.

The man opened a parachute attached to the ultralight, but it got tangled in the plane’s tail, and the aircraft nosedived into the ground about 200 feet south of the runway, Jefferson said.

The pilot had not taken off from New Jerusalem Airport, airport coordinator Bruce Ludman said.

The city runs the small airport, which is open during daylight hours and mostly used for flight schools, he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t generally regulate ultralight planes except for banning their flight after dark and above populated areas, spokesman Ian Gregor said.

Ultralight planes weigh less than 254 pounds, hold up to five gallons of gasoline, go as fast as 63 miles an hour and require no pilot’s license to fly.

In October 2007, an ultralight pilot from died when his plane crashed into a tree after he took off from New Jerusalem after dark.

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