Two people died in a parachuting accident at the Minden-Tahoe Airport, Thursday morning, after the tandem's parachute malfunctioned. They crashed at the entrance of the Douglas County Public Works yard off Heybourne Road, just west of the airport around 10:15 a.m. It was one of two tandems to jump from the plane, from about 12,500 feet.
"My other instructor told me he saw here parachute opened," Dave Chrouch, Owner of Skydive Lake Tahoe said. "It was fine. It was flying towards the landing area and everything was fine."
While one tandem landed safely, witnesses say the other one started spinning out of control.
"A girl driving by saw it, and that's how we know that it spiraled into the ground," Chrouch said. "We don't know why. We don't know how. That's all we know."
Douglas County Sheriff's Office has identified the instructor as 43-year-old Ashlie Caceras from Lodi, California and the other jumper as 21-year-old David Becker of Sankt Martin, Germany. Becker and his friend decided to skydive, while on vacation in the area.
"It's terrible. Especially, when somebody's here on vacation, doing something for fun, and then something tragic like this happens," Capt. Dan Coverley, Douglas County Sheriff's Office said.
Chrouch says Caceras was an experienced skydiving instructor and a licensed Tandem Master through the United States Parachute Association.
"She was a qualified instructor, had 1,500 jumps or more, qualified tandem instructor," Chrouch said. "We just don't know what happened."
The USPA says 3.2 million people jumped in 2016, but only 21 people died in skydiving accidents. The average over the last seven years is 22.1, dropping from 25.8 deaths per year from 2000-2009.
Chrouch says this is the first time in his career that his company has had a serious incident.
"Maybe a little scrape or something. You know, we land in the bushes or something like this but we've never had a fatality," Chrouch said." We've never had a tandem student seriously injured or anything else in my 35 years of doing this."
Skydive Lake Tahoe usually takes its customers for a 20 minute plane ride to Lake Tahoe and back, when the skydivers jump out. Chrouch says the skydivers crashed on the opposite side of the airport from where they were supposed to land.
"It's really hard," Chrouch said. "She was a really good friend. Especially, with my other two instructors...my other three instructors. They were all friends. They've been jumping together for years, and known each other for years. So, it's been a really rough day."
The Douglas County Sheriff's Office and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the accident. Chrouch says the skydivers were wearing video cameras, which could help determine what went wrong during the jump.
