Dorothy Hoffner, a 104-year-old Chicago woman whose recent skydive could see her certified by Guinness World Records as the oldest person to ever jump from a plane, has died.
Hoffner’s close friend, Joe Conant, said that she was found dead on Monday morning by staff at the Brookdale Lake View senior living community, adding that she apparently died in her sleep on Sunday night.
Conant, who is a nurse, said he met Hoffner — whom he called grandma at her request — several years ago while working as a caregiver for another resident at the senior living center.
Photo: AP via Daniel Wilsey
He said she had amazing energy and remained mentally sharp.
“She was indefatigable. She just kept going,” he said on Tuesday. “She was not someone who would take naps in the afternoon, or not show up for any function, dinner or anything else. She was always there, fully present. She kept going, always.”
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 4,100m at Skydive Chicago in Ottawa, Illinois.
“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 old.
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 would take some time.
The current record was set in May last year by 103-year-old Linnea Ingegard Larsson of Sweden.
“She [Hoffner] had no intention of breaking the record, and she had no interest in any publicity or anything. She wasn’t doing it for any other reason than she wanted to go skydiving,” he said.
Skydive Chicago and the US Parachute Association celebrated Hoffner in a joint statement on Tuesday.
“We are deeply saddened by Dorothy’s passing and feel honored to have been a part of making her world-record skydive a reality,” they said.
Conant said that Hoffner worked for more than four decades as a telephone operator with Illinois Bell, which later became AT&T, and retired 43 years ago.
The lifelong Chicago resident never married, and Conant said she had no immediate family members.
A memorial service for Hoffner is to be held early next month.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
IMPASSE: US President Donald Trump pressed to end the filibuster in a sign that he is unlikely to compromise despite Democrat offers for a delayed healthcare vote The US government shutdown stretched into its 40th day yesterday even as senators stayed in Washington for a grueling weekend session hoping to find an end to the funding fight that has disrupted flights nationwide, threatened food assistance for millions of Americans and left federal workers without pay. The US Senate has so far shown few signs of progress over a weekend that could be crucial for the shutdown fight. Republican leaders are hoping to hold votes on a new package of bills that would reopen the government into January while also approving full-year funding for several parts of government, but
TOWERING FIGURE: To Republicans she was emblematic of the excesses of the liberal elite, but lawmakers admired her ability to corral her caucus through difficult votes Nancy Pelosi, a towering figure in US politics, a leading foe of US President Donald Trump and the first woman to serve as US House of Representatives speaker, on Thursday announced that she would step down at the next election. Admired as a master strategist with a no-nonsense leadership style that delivered for her party, the 85-year-old Democrat shepherded historic legislation through the US Congress as she navigated a bitter partisan divide. In later years, she was a fierce adversary of Trump, twice leading his impeachment and stunning Washington in 2020 when she ripped up a copy of his speech to the
RSS