Lodi: Two sky divers killed when parachute doesn’t open

Two California skydivers died on Saturday when their parachutes failed to open and they landed in a vineyard, the skydiving company’s owner said.

The men, who were tandem jumping, died in San Joaquin County in California.

The sheriff’s office says that the department will be handling the coroner’s investigation into the tandem skydiving deaths but that the FAA will be performing the investigation into what caused the fatal accident.

According to the AP news agency, eye-witnesses in nearby Sacramento said they did not see a parachute open. The bodies of the two men were found in a vineyard in the Lodi area.

Dause said other skydivers at the center continued with their jumps after the incident.

Both victims were men in their 20s, and one was an instructor, according to Deputy Les Garcia.

The skydiving center’s owner says the weather was flawless at the time of the jump.

He said: “The parachute failed to eject properly. We have no explanation why”, said Dause. We didn’t do anything wrong. Parachute Center owner Bill Dause told KCRA the instructor was an independent contractor, but he was very experienced. Citing a report in the local Lodi News-Sentinel, a solo skydiver was killed in February this year after another parachute malfunction. “It looks like something went out of sequence”, he said.

The incident is being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration.