Casa Grande woman chasing world speed skydiving record

PHOENIX - Skydiving can be a fun and exhilarating hobby, but for some, the extreme sport becomes their life.

In Arizona, a woman competes at the local, national, and international level, and she is trying to go as fast as she possibly can jumping out of a plane, in a sport called ‘speed skydiving.’

"500 kilometers, is about 313 miles an hour," Brianne Thompson said. "I’m at about 481 kilometers. You’d have to do the math to convert it, but it’s around 300 miles per hour."

Thomspon, who lives in Casa Grande, is a champion skydiver. She recently broke 14 records.

"I'm currently competing in speed and speed is the one where we broke all the records," Thompson said. "That’s the one where you dive to the Earth as fast as you can, and you're measured by GPS."

Skydiving started out as a hobby, but then she started competing, and today she and her husband run Axis Flight School, a skydiving business in Eloy.

With thousands of jumps, Ellen McNamara asked Thompson about any close calls.

"I've had some close calls, but not really with other jumpers," Thompson said. "It tended to be more pilot error and mistakes I made when I was a young jumper."

Thomspon will pull her chute about 3,000 feet above the ground. She says that’s plenty of time to prepare.

As she chases the world record in speed skydiving, Thompson hopes others will try out the sport.

"It’s really fun, an awesome community and hopefully we can get more people involved in it," Thomspon said.