Tandem skydiving, tourist dies from free fall from height of over 3,800 m

A professional female guide and a male tourist died after participating in a skydiving trip in western Nevada, USA.

The bodies of the two victims were found on the morning of August 3 near Minden-Tahoe Airport, western Nevada, USA, the New York Times reported.

Douglas County Sheriff Dan Coverley identified the two victims. The guide who died was Ashlie Caceras, 43, of California, who worked for Skydive Lake Tahoe. The tourist who died was David Becker, 21, of Germany.

A typical skydive. Photo: FunFix.

According to the initial investigation, the tourist and his female guide participated in a tandem skydive from a plane near Lake Tahoe, at an altitude of about 3,810 m. Both were equipped with a rope connected to a common parachute. In addition, they also had another spare parachute. However, investigators have not revealed whether the parachute opened in time or had any technical problems.

“It’s terrible that someone who comes here to relax and have fun has a tragedy like this happen,” said Chief Coverley.

“Ashlie Caceras is an experienced skydiving instructor. She has done at least 1,500 jumps,” said Dave Chrouch, director of Skydive Lake Tahoe. “We don’t understand what happened.”

Police and the company are investigating the cause of the accident. The company's most recent parachute accident was in 2008, when co-founder Wes Harberts died after his parachute failed to open.

According to the US Skydiving Association, 2016 saw 21 fatal accidents involving the sport out of a total of 3.2 million jumps.

Skydiver in trouble. Video: YouTube.

According to VNE