San Joaquin County sheriff’s officials have not identified the instructor killed on Saturday in Lodi, 137km east of San Francisco.
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The owner of the Northern California skydiving center where the accident happened says the young man had his brother and others there watching when he hit the ground with his veteran instructor.
A pair of tandem parachute skydivers died Saturday morning in Acampo, the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department confirmed.
It appeared that the parachute opened after impact, according to police. Like all skydiving accidents resulting in fatalities, the accident will be investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in order to determine the exact cause of the two skydivers’ deaths.
The skydivers were jumping with the Parachute Center skydiving school in Acampo. The website says introductory tandem jumps from 13,000 feet, with an instructor cost $100.
Parachute Center owner Bill Dause told KCRA-TV the instructor in Saturday’s deadly jump was an independent contractor who has made about 700 jumps.
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The skydive centre was in the news in May, when a small plane carrying 17 skydivers landed upside-down after clipping a truck, with the worst injuries being minor cuts and scrapes. “We didn’t do anything wrong”, Dause said. You keep going. You feel sorry for the people who can’t participate any longer’. He said they do not yet know why it failed to eject. Citing a report in the local Lodi News-Sentinel, a solo skydiver was killed in February this year after another parachute malfunction. “I am always liable but I am not concerned. If you went to Davis or one of these other jumpers I’m sure they have a lot less fatalities but they also have a lot less divers”.
