JUNE 20, 2015
JAMUL, CALIFORNIA
A skydiver was killed Friday in a hard landing near Lower
Otay Lake, authorities reported.
The parachuting fatality off the 13500 block of Otay Lakes Road in Jamul was
reported shortly after 2 p.m., according to Cal Fire.
Andrei Penz, 30, was an expert parachutist with more than
1,500 jumps a year under his belt and many years of experience. However, the parachute has to fail once, and
then it is end of life.
An expert skydive instructor with a passion for adventure
and a love of life was killed after a hard landing at the Skydive San Diego
facility in Jamul, California, Friday when his parachute failed.
The experienced parachutist - identified by the San Diego
County Medical Examiner's Office as Andrei Penz, 30 – jumped at 1:30 p.m. at
the facility on 13531 Otay Lakes Road, according to the San Diego County
Sheriff's Department.
A witness watching from below told officials that as the man
got closer to the ground, they could see him moving the parachute's toggles.
However, it did not slow him down, and he hit the ground hard.
The witness said the parachute appeared to be partially
collapsed upon the skydiver's approach to the ground.
Paramedics and a medical chopper were called in, and despite
CPR efforts, they were not able to revive the victim.
Penz was working as a contracted skydive instructor at
Skydive San Diego.
Buzz Fink, owner of Skydive San Diego, told NBC 7 the
charismatic Penz was a master of his craft and was loved by many.
“Andrei was a great guy. He loved skydiving. He loved his
fellow skydivers. He loved the sport; he loved adventure. He loved life,” said
Fink.
Fink said Penz was a senior parachute rigger with the
Federal Aviation Administration and was able to work on his own parachutes. He
had been working on his equipment before the accident and Fink said there was
an issue with how the parachute’s line length was “trimmed,” which impacted how
it flew.
When Penz came in for turns, the parachute wasn’t working as
smoothly as it should have been, Fink said.
“When he came in
yesterday to land, for some reason, as he turned, the entire parachute turned
underneath itself and collapsed, so he ended up falling over 100 feet,” Fink
explained.
Fink said Penz had logged more than 1,500 jumps a year for
the past several years and was an “extremely experienced, expert skydiver and
instructor.”
Unfortunately, Fink said, more experience often means more
accidents in the world of skydiving.
“In the sport of skydiving, generally the injuries and
accidents are with the more highly-experienced skydivers because the more
experience you get, the smaller canopy you get, and the faster you go,” he
explained.
However, with more experience, comes more expertise when it
comes to handling parachutes, Fink added.
He said this accident had nothing to do with Penz’s skills,
rather an equipment malfunction that ended in tragedy.
“Andrei was an expert canopy pilot. He did not do anything
wrong (until of course the deadly incident with his parachute - his mistake only have to happen once): he did not set up his approach wrong, he did not turn wrong. It happened
to be something with the equipment he had on at the time that happened to fail
on him. That’s what caused it. It was not his skills. He was an expert
parachutist,” Fink said.
Fink said most of Penz’s family lives in Brazil, but he does
leave behind a girlfriend and sister in San Diego.
Besides skydiving, Penz loved to surf, hike and travel. He will not do any of that anymore.
“He would do a little bit of everything. He just lived life
to the fullest,” Fink said. “I think [skydiving] made him feel alive, jumping
out of an airplane at 120 mph, feeling the rush of the air in your face.”
Fink said fellow jumpers and his company will work together
with the victim’s family to plan a memorial service down the line.
He assured skydiving is a safe sport – more so, in his
opinion, than driving a car. You must be joking, right? Only nutcases sky-jump, risking their lives for cheap thrills.
“I feel safer doing a tandem skydive than I would driving on
the road. I do think the most dangerous part is actually driving to and from
the skydiving center. When done right (of course this is a big if), [skydiving] is very safe,” he said. Yes, but driving a car is safe if it is done right. The problem is that there are people who brake the rules and end up killing themselves or others.
Skydive San Diego does approximately 16,000 tandem jumps a
year in San Diego.
