The Dillingham Airfield skydiving company whose instructor and student drowned Friday after their tandem parachute landed in the ocean has no record of prior accidents or incidents with the Federal Aviation Administration, agency officials confirmed yesterday.

Skydive Hawaii, however, was issued a warning notice in September 1998 for failing to comply with FAA regulations that have to do primarily with posting certain kinds of information about parachute operations.

The FAA described the violation as an administrative issue. The matter was resolved within 10 days, according to the FAA files.

Meanwhile, an experienced skydiver was killed in February 2005 after he arranged a skydiving outing through Skydive Hawaii.

Jeremy Barrett, 23, a Navy diver stationed at Pearl Harbor, had accumulated 171 jumps prior to the fatal accident.

Skydive Hawaii President Frank Hinshaw said Barrett's fatal accident does not show up on Skydive Hawaii's safety record because Barrett merely went through the company to book himself a seat on an airplane that took him and other parachutists into the sky to jump.

Although Barrett had been a student of Skydive Hawaii in 2003, the company had no supervisory relationship over him when he made the fatal jump.

While Skydive Hawaii arranged the seat for Barrett, he was taken aloft in an airplane belonging to another company, Hinshaw said.

FAA officials concurred with Hinshaw that the Barrett accident would not be included on Skydive Hawaii's record because the company simply arranged for Barrett to get a seat on a plane operated by another company and had no oversight responsibility for him.

Skydive Hawaii instructor Erich "Max" Mueller, 69, and Saori Takahashi, 33, a tourist from Japan, died Friday after the tandem parachute that Mueller was responsible for overshot a landing area at the airfield and drifted out over the ocean.

Rescuers said the pair landed in waist-deep water but got intertwined in the parachute can-opy and rigging, which trapped them under water for 10 to 30 minutes.

Hinshaw has said he believes that Mueller became incapacitated during the parachute's descent because he appeared to be slumped down in the harness and not in control of the parachute during its final pass over the airfield.

Hinshaw said he was interviewed by an FAA investigator on Tuesday. He said the tandem parachute used by Mueller and Takahashi was not recovered immediately after the accident and disappeared by the time efforts were made to recover it.

FAA officials yesterday could not estimate how long the agency's investigation of the accident will take.

Once the investigation begins, FAA officials are prohibited from discussing any aspect of the investigation until it is completed, said agency spokesmen Mike Fergus from an FAA regional office in Renton, Wash.

While the city medical examiner has concluded that Mueller and Takahashi drowned, no finding was made since autopsies of the two on Monday as to whether Mueller may have suffered some other health problem during the jump.

Department officials are hoping toxicology and other tests will help determine what might have led Mueller to lose control of the parachute during the latter portion of the jump.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com.