Girl celebrating her 18th birthday plunges 1,300ft to her death along with her skydiving instructor as their parachute fails to open properly – but Mexican firm insists it wasn’t an accident
- Vanessa Ivonne Melendez Cardenas and her instructor Mauricio Gutiérrez Castillo were declared dead Sunday after a skydiving incident in Mexico
- Cardenas, a high school student, was celebrating her 18th birthday and decided to celebrate with the 1,300-feet parachute jump over Tequesquitengo
- The pair’s bodies were found in a field next to a highway in the state of Morelos
- Albatros Parachuting, who operated the skydiving trip, said the incident was not an accident, and insists it was caused by human error
- The company’s director said someone had ‘manipulated and activated the release mechanism’
A girl celebrating her 18th birthday plunged to her death along with her skydiving instructor after their parachute failed to deploy properly.
Vanessa Ivonne Melendez Cardenas had just turned 18 and on Sunday decided to celebrate with the 1,300-feet parachute jump over Tequesquitengo, in Morelos, Mexico.
Shocking video filmed from the ground shows the moment the high school student and her instructor, Mauricio Gutiérrez Castillo, 34, rapidly descend from the sky.
The footage shows at least four skydivers descending from the sky.
Vanessa Ivonne Melendez Cardenas had just turned 18 and decided to celebrate it by going skydiving in the Mexican state of Morelos
A man at the campsite filmed the moment Melendez Cardenas and her skydiving instructor (pictured inside the red circle) plummeted from the sky
Family members look over the bodies of Vanessa Ivonne Melendez Cardenas and her instructor Mauricio Gutiérrez Castillo moments after the pair crashed to the ground while skydiving
The man then asks a girl that is accompanying if ‘Liz’ is about to land, perhaps referring to Melendez Cardenas.
‘My God, I hope that’s Liz come this way,’ he says after another person is close to landing.
A short while later, the man notices that ‘Liz’ is not among the group of skydivers.
It’s unknown if the male was related to Melendez Cardenas.
The bodies of Melendez Cardenas and Gutiérrez Castillo were found in a grass field
Authorities found the bodies of Melendez Cardenas and Gutiérrez Castillo in a grass field.
The Mexican skydiving company who organised the jump insists that the fatal fall was not an accident caused by malfunctioning equipment.
Jorge Gaitán, the director of Albatros Parachuting instead said it was caused by one of the two victims.
‘It wasn’t equipment failure or anything like that,’ he said. ‘It surely had to do with someone who was on that flight, who manipulated and activated the release mechanism.’
The skydiving company, which doesn’t offer insurance to the skydivers because it is considered an extreme sport, said the parachute’s release was activated at an altitude where ‘it was impossible for the parachute to respond.’
Gutiérrez Castillo was an experienced instructor with over 4,500 parachute jumps.
‘That doesn’t end up happening by accident: it is caused by a human. We are in those investigations. We still do not know what happened,’ Gaitán added.