Plane to Earth W/O Chute

[MoonlightVFR]

42 year old Luke Aiken just became first to jump plane to earth without parachute and walk away.

He jumped out of a perfectly good airplane - a Cessna I believe.

25,000 ft and jumpers away.

I can see a future contract spl event OSHGOSH or a filled NASCAR stadium - repeat the stunt and get paid.

[falco]

Somehow, I don't feel a great need to try this new sport.

[flyboy122]

I seem to recall a story about a Russian airman who accidentally fell from a plane at 20K+ feet and lived. I thought he fell onto a the side of a mountain or something 1 in a million like that which gave him the needed deceleration. Could be a wives tail, but at the same time wouldn't surprise me it it's true either.

DEM

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

There are a few known examples of airmen falling from great height with no chute and surviving impact.

Somehow I'm more impressed with soldiers who run into battle, police who run towards gun fire, and firemen who run into burning buildings. We see this every day, yet how often do we pay real attention. It is so common place as to be expected.

Look we all do risky things. And there is a reward vs risk analysis we all do. I wonder if he considered the risk he put all his support staff at while doing this, into account. I'll bet there was some there supporting this who where not exactly volunteer, such as fire fighters and medical personnel. And then his own family. What must they have gone through. His mother could not watch.

Somehow I'm not impressed with this stunt.

[GAHorn]

Seems like an applicant for a Darwin-Award.

It was a Swissair Flight Attendant that was sucked out the back door of a DC9 over the Alps from cruise altitude (29K'+ if I recall correctly) into a snow-slide and survived (badly injured, of course, but survived.)