Dorothy Hoffner, a 104-year-old woman went viral when her recent skydive placed her in the Guinness World Records as the oldest person to ever jump from a plane, has died.
Joe Conant, Hoffner’s close friend, she was found dead on Monday morning and it’s reported that Hoffner apparently died in her sleep on Sunday night.
On Oct. 1, Hoffner made a tandem skydive that could land her in the record books as the world’s oldest skydiver. She jumped out of a plane from 13,500 feet (4,100 meters) at Skydive Chicago in Ottawa, Illinois, 85 miles (140 kilometers) southwest of Chicago.
“Age is just a number,” Hoffner told a cheering crowd moments after landing. It was not her first time jumping from a plane — that happened when she was a spry 100 years of age.
Conant said he was working through paperwork to ensure that Guinness World Records certifies Hoffner posthumously as the world’s oldest skydiver, but he expects that will take some time. The current record was set in May 2022 by 103-year-old Linnéa Ingegärd Larsson of Sweden.
Conant said Hoffner didn’t skydive to break a record. He said she had so thoroughly enjoyed her first jump that she just wanted to do it again.
