A terrified pensioner almost plunged to her death after a tandem dive went horribly wrong.

The 80-year-old woman named Laverne was left hanging by a thread after changing her mind about the jump at the last minute.

In the dramatic two-minute video first posted on TheChive.com, her instructor can be seen hanging on to her by her safety harness which had slipped down her legs.

As the pair plummet to the ground at 125mph, the woman's top flies up exposing her bogy to the violent high-speed winds.

Despite a separate jumper's attempts to come to the pair's aid they continue to fall dangerously.

At the start of the video Laverne introduces herself and declares that she is doing the dive to mark her 80<sup>th birthday.

She also reveals that she has been planning the dive for ten years and that she is "real excited".

The end of the video the miraculously uninjured pensioner can be seen on the ground being soothed, while the traumatised instructor also has to be consoled by a colleague.

However, according to Tony Butler, technical officer at the British Parachute Association, the incident could have been fatal.

Butler told the Daily Mail that she could have easily slipped out of her harness: "She was very close to slipping out.

"You can see from the video the instructor was trying to get to the harness and cling on to it. The person with the video camera was also trying to help."