Alfred Blaschke certainly proved that age is just a number, when he decided to celebrate his grandsons’ college graduation by going skydiving. Born on January 4, 1917 in Georgetown, Alfred officially broke the Guinness record at the age of 103 years and 181 days.
Surprisingly enough, this was not even his first time going skydiving; his first time was during his 100th birthday three years ago. Even more surprisingly, Alfred is not the only 103-year-old skydiving. Kathryn Hodges, from Washington State, was the previous 103 year old to hold record for oldest person going skydiving. With some many centennials jumping out of airplanes, there could be an untapped market in the skydiving industry.
Alfred performed a 14,000 feet jump out of an airplane alongside his grandsons at Skydive Spaceland San Marcos in Texas. During the jump, Alfred remained in free fall for five minutes, until he reached a terminal velocity of 120 miles per hour at 6,000 feet.
On a post-jump interview, Alfred stated, “Skydiving is a very safe sport these days. Statistically, it’s more dangerous to get snacks out of a vending machine.”
His grandson also commented, “It was awesome to be able to jump out of an airplane with my grandpa,” grandson Kevin Blaschke told ABC News. “Him breaking the world record was just icing on the cake.”