Tag Archives: Skydiving Insurance

25,000-Foot Jump By Skydiver Without A Parachute

As many a skydiver will tell you, one of the things that is feared most by someone participating in the dangerous sport is that, when he or she jumps from a plane in mid-air, their parachute fails to open leading almost certainly to their death. So, can you imagine someone jumping from a plane at 25,000 feet but purposefully not wearing a parachute and free falling to land in a large net above ground unharmed?Skydiving

Well that is exactly what Luke Aikins did on the 30th July 2016. He is an American skydiver and completed the risky free fall in California landing safely in the huge net unharmed. He is the first person to have made such a decent from that sort of height and spent two years planning for the jump.

He is certainly an experienced skydiver, having completed in excess of 18,000 jumps over the years. For the first 10,000 feet of the jump he wore an oxygen mask and was accompanied by three other skydivers for part of the decent and, of course, those three all had parachutes that opened safely.

He was even filmed live on TV doing the jump that lasted for two minutes and was watched by his wife and young son from the ground. It must have been the longest two minutes of his family’s lives.

SkydivingThe net was hung from four tall cranes and measured 100 hundred foot square. There was a second net underneath the one he dropped into no doubt as some form of back up. Shortly before he fell into the net he turned over onto his back and made a safe landing.

Whilst Mr Aikins has no doubt been congratulated for breaking a record, this is probably not something that other skydivers should contemplate doing no matter how experienced they are. You can view a video of his decent on the Internet.

As If Skydiving Isn’t Risky Enough!

SkydivingIf you are a skydiver then you will be aware of the many risks associated with the sport. For instance, your parachute may fail to open in which case it is quite likely that you are going to die upon hitting the ground or you could end up parachuting into a wooded area that could result in your serious injury or even death. Whilst every precaution is taken to avoid such instances, they do happen, albeit infrequently when you consider the number of skydivers that take to the skies on a daily basis.

Well, you may be interested to hear of an incident that took place on Thursday 12th May 2016 in California that could have resulted in the death of 17 skydivers none of whom had even jumped from the plane. In fact, it may have been a problem with the plane that resulted in these skydivers lives being placed at risk.

Shortly after taking off with the pilot and 17 skydivers on board the Cessna 208 got into difficulty due to what may have been a problem with the engine. The appropriate authority is currently investigating the cause of the incident. As a result, the pilot had to take evasive action and try to make an emergency landing.Skydiving

During its descent, unfortunately a truck was clipped by the plane albeit the occupants of the vehicle were unharmed. It landed in a vineyard but tipped over onto its back before coming to a halt about 50 feet from someone’s home.

The occupants were, with the exception of the pilot whose nose was bloody, unharmed although they were no doubt somewhat shocked in view of what had happened. The skydivers must have remained as calm as they could because they put their helmets and seatbelts back on as they waited for the plane to make an emergency landing in the vineyard.

Let’s hope that none of our skydiving clients or anyone else for that matter finds themselves in a similar situation. It is possible to view a video on the Internet of part of the incident that was taken by one of the skydivers.