On Sunday, Oct. 1, 104-year-old Chicagoan Dorothy Hoffner broke skydiving history as the oldest woman to tandem parachute jump from an airplane. On Monday, Oct. 9, Hoffner died at Brookdale Lake View Senior Living Facility in Chicago.
Hoffner landed in the grassy field at Skydive Chicago, in Ottawa, to applause from a crowd of people who were there to see her jump, smiling, she said, “That was wonderful.”
She had said earlier that she wanted to prove “it’s never too late to realize your dreams” by setting a worldwide skydiving record. The previous record was set by 103-year-old Rut Linnéa Ingegärd Larsson from Sweden, breaking the female tandem parachute jump record in May 2022.
She told reporters on Oct. 1 that she was motivated to jump again because “it’s fun.” When asked how she felt before and after the jump, she only replied that “age had nothing to do with it.”