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 she was found dead Monday morning by staff at the Brookdale Lake View senior living community. Conant said Hoffner apparently died in her sleep on Sunday night.
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 13,500 feet (4,100 meters) at Skydive Chicago in Ottawa, Illinois, 85 miles (140 kilometers) southwest of Chicago.
“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 of age.
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 will take some time. The current record was set in May 2022 by 103-year-old Linnéa Ingegärd Larsson of Sweden.
“We are deeply saddened by Dorothy’s passing and feel honored to have been a part of making her world-record skydive a reality.
“Skydiving is an activity that many of us safely tuck away in our bucket lists. But Dorothy reminds us that it’s never too late to take the thrill of a lifetime. We are forever grateful that skydiving was a part of her exciting, well-lived life,” they said.
Conant said 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.
