B.C. great grandmother celebrates 99th birthday skydiving with great grandson

Would you jump out of a plane with a parachute strapped to your back? Now ask yourself the same question, but imagine you’re just 13 months shy of your 100th birthday.

For Coquitlam’s Lucie Koenig, the answer is yes — in a heartbeat.

There was no hesitation from the skydiving granny as she met up with her great grandson to leap from the heavens just a few weeks shy of her 99th birthday.

“I don’t consider that I’m a thrill seeker. I just like to know things, I like to experience things. When I was young like a teenager I was mountain climbing in the Austrian Alps,” Koenig told Global News on Monday.

“I don’t scare easy.”

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Indeed, it’s not even the first time in recent years she’s gone skydiving. Koenig strapped on a parachute for her 93rd birthday — an event she’d hoped to share with her great grandson Nicholas Tait.

“When I did it the first time he wanted to come with me, but of course he was too young,” she said.

“So we had to wait, and when he was old enough, COVID came along, and there was nothing going on. So now we’re doing it.”

Tait, now 21, said he felt honoured his great grandmother wanted to take the leap with him.

“I think I’m more nervous. I don’t think my great grandma is nervous at all. She has no fear,” he said.

“She’s been so many places, I aspire to be like her one day.”

Koenig has experienced a lot in her near 99-years, what she described as an “interesting life.”

She moved to B.C. 32 years ago, and has lived all over Canada, including Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario, and has travelled the world.

She’s also gone ziplining and even elephant riding.

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Koening also lived through the Second World War in Austria. While she and her Jewish mother were spared, a large part of her family was sent to Nazi concentration camps.

“Hell,” she said of the experience.

“Seventeen members, and never came back. So that, I guess, sums it up.”

Now as she approaches life as a centenarian her motto is simple.

“Do what makes you happy.”

Monday’s flight and jump went off like clockwork — and about 15 minutes after liftoff she and her great grandson were back on the ground, safe and sound.

“I wouldn’t go if I was scared,” she said on touchdown. “It’s a beautiful view. It’s worth it for the view to go up there.”

With such a high-flying 99th birthday celebration, it begs the question what to do for 100.

Another jump perhaps?

“I don’t know,” she said with a smile. “I’ll think about it.”