A 21-year-old Canadian college student and TikTok influencer fell to her death while skydiving in Toronto late last month, according to reports.
Tanya Pardazi died Aug. 27 at Skydive Toronto, where she had completed a course before her first jump, which ultimately led to her death, a friend told CTV News Toronto.
Pardazi was studying philosophy at the University of Toronto, according to CTV News Toronto, and ran a TikTok account with more than 100,000 followers.
The skydive facility requires student to complete a course in "all of the fundamentals required to successfully complete your first skydive" — including "equipment, how to exit the airplane, freefall body position (arch), canopy control, and emergency protocol" — before they take their first jumps from 4,000 feet, according to the website.
The facility confirmed a 21-year-old student's death in a Facebook statement that did not identify Pardazi by name.
A representative for Skydive Toronto said by email that "out of respect for the family, we will not be releasing any further details than what our statement has already included."
The Facebook statement said the skydiver "released a quickly rotating main parachute at a low altitude without the time/altitude required for the reserve parachute to inflate."
"The jumper was a welcomed recent addition to the skydiving community and will be missed amongst the student's new friends and fellow jumpers of Skydive Toronto Inc," the statement added. "The team at Skydive Toronto Inc has been profoundly affected by this accident as they have refined their student training program for over 50 years."
The facility is working with police — who confirmed the fatal incident in a statement Aug. 28 — as they investigate, the statement said.
Friends of Pardazi told CTV News Toronto that she had made it to the semifinals of a Miss Canada competition. She "had an interest in anything that was new and adventurous,” her childhood friend Melody Ozgoli said.
“She really lived every second to the fullest,” Ozgoli told CTV News Toronto. “This is the biggest shock to us. It’s very hard to process. It’s been a couple of days, but we still don’t even believe it.”
The University of Toronto's cheerleading team paid tribute to Pardazi in on Instagram.
"Forever part of our team and in our hearts, Tanya Pardazi was one in a million," the caption read.
