Skydiver dies after hitting semi-truck on California highway

A skydiver was killed Thursday after landing on southbound Highway 99 in Northern California and being struck by a big rig, authorities said. (CNN/KCRA)

A skydiver has died after she hit a tractor trailer and crash-landed on a Northern California highway, making her the latest fatality for a skydiving facility with a troubled history.

A 28-year-old woman had been skydiving with a group of seven people on Thursday around 2 p.m. when the tragedy occurred, California Highway Patrol PIO Ruben Jones told CNN. Her identity has not been released, but according to the CHP, she is from Colombia.

Jones told reporters that the skydiving group “were descending” when the 28-year-old woman “collided with the rear of a big rig trailer.”

She then hit the right-hand shoulder of the highway, CHP said in a Facebook post. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The group had taken off from the Skydive Lodi Parachute Center, a skydiving centre that has been operating for 55 years and boasts on its website that it is the "most inexpensive in the world."

In a Facebook post on Friday, the centre wrote that they are “heartbroken at the recent tragedy of an experienced jumper and member of our community,” and added that experienced jumpers “accept the risks inherent in the sport.”

“Unfortunately, at this time we cannot comment any further out of respect for the jumper and the jumper’s family,” the post continued.

However, Bill Dause, the owner of the centre, spoke to local station KOVR later that day, saying that there’s a lot of variables that come into play when deciding if conditions are ready for a jump, and that “that’s a decision each individual makes.”

The other six people in the group made it safely to the ground, according to CNN affiliate KCRA.

What caused the woman to veer off course is unknown, but witnesses say it was a windy day in the Acampo area.

Lisa Reyes was driving with her father and brother on Highway 99 when the woman crashed.

"The way the person was struggling, just struggling against the wind and their body was just moving really, really fast," she told KCRA.

“Was it windy? Yes,” Dause told KOVR. “Was it too windy? No. Not for her experience level.”

This is not the first time that the Skydive Lodi Parachute Center has been involved in tragedy.

The Sacramento Bee reports that around 21 people have died during jumps involving the centre since 1981.

Since 2016 alone, five people who have gone skydiving out of the parachute centre have died, according to reports from The Associated Press. The most recent fatality reported on was in October of 2018, when a woman using her own equipment died after she jumped from a plane that took off from Skydive Lodi and her parachute failed to deploy.

Skydiving accidents are usually relatively rare. A report from The United States Parachute Association said that there were roughly 3.3 million skydives in 2018 and only 13 skydiving fatalities, the lowest number the organization has recorded.

Tandem skydiving, where a student or amateur does a skydiving jump while strapped to a trained instructor, has an even lower fatality rate according to the USPA, with one student fatality per 500,000 jumps.

A tragic incident involving a tandem jump at the Skydive Lodi hit the news in 2016, pulling the USPA into an investigation.

On August 7, San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a Facebook post that two people had struck the ground without an open parachute, and died upon impact. One of the deceased was 18-year-old Tyler Turner, who had been going for his first skydive as part of a birthday party. The other was the skydiving instructor, identified as 25-year-old Yong Kwon.

The USPA, which certifies skydivers, investigated and found that there was no record of Kwon having obtained the advanced parachuting certificate required by the Federal Aviation Administration to be a tandem-jump instructor, according to The Associated Press.

In 2017, there were two deaths after jumps with the centre: 42-year-old Matthew Ciancio, a veteran skydiver, crashed in May while operating a wingsuit, and 54-year-old Brett Hawton died in September when his chute tangled.

The Associated Press and the Sacramento Bee have reported that FBI agents raided the facility in 2018, confiscating records and video footage.

CTVNews.ca has reached out to the centre for comment on the past fatalities.

Residents and travellers in the Acampo area were unsettled after the death of the 28-year-old woman. Reyes told KCRA that her family was “really traumatized right now,” after what they witnessed.

The highway was closed for the investigation, but has since been reopened.

The CHP and the FAA will be investigating the death of the 28-year-old woman.