A 28-year-old woman died while skydiving after she struck a big-rig trailer and then crashed into a California highway, authorities said.
The woman was parachuting with about six other people just after 2 p.m. Thursday when the accident occurred in Acampo in the Lodi area, about 35 miles south of Sacramento, California Highway Patrol officer Ruben Jones said at a news conference.
Jones said the woman struck the rear of the trailer and then hit the right-hand shoulder of the road. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities are not yet releasing the woman’s name, but Jones said she was from Colombia.
A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration told NBC News the agency is investigating the accident.
According to The Associated Press, the woman was parachuting with a group from the Skydive Lodi Parachute Center in Acampo. When contacted by NBC News on Friday morning, a man who answered the phone at the business said that he could not comment and that the center would be holding a press conference later in the day.
Jones said he is not sure where the group of parachuters was supposed to land when the woman crashed.
One woman said her father and her brother were driving on the highway and witnessed the accident. She told NBC affiliate KCRA in Sacramento that they are “traumatized” by what happened.
“My dad said he never wants to see anything like that again,” the woman said, adding that the skydiver was “struggling” against the wind before she crashed. “Their body was just moving really, really fast. That’s what really kind of got (to) him.”
