FAA Investigating 80 Year Old’s Skydive Mishap
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iStockPhoto/ThinkStock(WASHINGTON) — One 80 year old grandmother’s terrifying skydive is being investigated by the FAA after it went viral.
The video was created by The Parachute Center, a skydiving company in Acampo, Calif., as a memento for jumpers to take home after their airborne adventures.
It shows a woman named Laverne having second thoughts right before her jump, but the instructor scoops her up and they fall out of the plane. At one point in the video, it appears that Laverne has slipped out of her harness, and the instructor grabs on to her.
In a statement to ABC News, Parachute Center owner Bill Dause said, “This happened a long time ago and everything worked as advertised. No one got hurt or injured.”
An FAA safety inspector visited The Parachute Center on Saturday, according to FAA spokesman Ian Gregor. The inspector spoke with the company owner and employees about the incident and plans to do additional interviews and examine records next week.
Skydiving fatalities are on the decline these days, with some 21 deaths out of 3 million jumpers in 2010, a 0.007 chance of death, according to the association.
Nancy Koreen, a spokesperson for the association, said it looked as if Laverne’s harness wasn’t adjusted properly, and that she wasn’t positioned properly before the jump. “But that’s not at all a common occurrence,” she said. “It’s extremely, extremely rare.”
Even so, Laverne will probably celebrate her next birthday on solid ground.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio Online