GA pilot reported an near midair collision with parachutists in a known jump zone near mzj.

Attributes
ACN	1422291
Time
Date	201702
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	MZJ.Airport
State Reference	AZ
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Small Aircraft Low Wing 1 Eng Retractable Gear
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Cruise
Route In Use	None
Flight Plan	VFR
Person 1
Function	Single Pilot Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Private
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 30 Flight Crew Total 1600 Flight Crew Type 20
Events
Anomaly	Conflict NMAC Inflight Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Miss Distance	Horizontal 200 Vertical 200

Narrative:

Aircraft was on autopilot; set on cruise power at approximately 230 knots when what appeared to be birds or balloons appeared. Attempted a small course correction but the autopilot was too much to overcome and then realized it was skydivers. Reached to disengage; but by that time I was already beneath them and one was very close maybe 200 feet. Passed by with nothing happening; but possible irritated skydivers. The problem resulted from not knowing the autopilot system well and traveling at high speed in a known parachuting location. The reaction time after understanding what you are seeing at high speeds is very short. Never in 20 years of flying have I seen free falling parachutes. I did not recognize what it was until too close. My future action to avoid a situation like this is talk to flight following when transitioning jump zones as jumpers are hard to spot.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: GA pilot reported an NMAC with parachutists in a known jump zone near MZJ.

Narrative: Aircraft was on autopilot; set on cruise power at approximately 230 knots when what appeared to be birds or balloons appeared. Attempted a small course correction but the autopilot was too much to overcome and then realized it was skydivers. Reached to disengage; but by that time I was already beneath them and one was very close maybe 200 feet. Passed by with nothing happening; but possible irritated skydivers. The problem resulted from not knowing the autopilot system well and traveling at high speed in a known parachuting location. The reaction time after understanding what you are seeing at high speeds is very short. Never in 20 years of flying have I seen free falling parachutes. I did not recognize what it was until too close. My future action to avoid a situation like this is talk to Flight Following when transitioning jump zones as jumpers are hard to spot.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.