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Skydiver Missing Near Seattle Thought to Be Dead

VIDEO: Kurt Ruppert, 29, disappeared Thursday after jumping from helicopter at 6,500 feet.

The search for a wing suit-wearing skydiver in the Washington Cascade foothills will continue by helicopter as the weather allows, but officials don't expect to find him alive.

No one saw a parachute Thursday, and if 29-year-old Kurt Ruppert, of Lake City, Fla., was caught in a tree or lost in the forest, the King County sheriff's office believes he's dead of hypothermia.

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VIDEO: Kurt Ruppert, 29, disappeared Thursday after jumping from helicopter at 6,500 feet.
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Sgt. Cindi West says the ground search was suspended Sunday after dozens of searchers covered 9 square miles at Mount Si (SY), a steep and heavily forested 4,200-foot peak about 30 miles east of Seattle.

Fog prevented a helicopter search Monday.

Ruppert was taking turns with two friends who were waiting on the ground when he jumped out of a helicopter at 6,500 feet.

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