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Tag: skydiver

  • Skydiver Falls To Death After Parachute Tangles

    A 62-year old skydiver fell to his death yesterday in California after he became entangled in his parachute, officials say.

    Ken Oka of Mira Loma was attempting a multiple-person jump when the parachute got snared; he was unable to free himself midair and fell into a suburban backyard.

    Local police and the FAA are both conducting investigations; eerily, another 62-year old man fell to his death in a similar way just earlier this month in Deland, Florida. Officials say Santiago Rosell died during a jump with two other people after landing in a grassy field near the runway.

    “It was a passion that he shared with everyone around him,” said friend Lisa Kittrell of Rosell. She said he often went skydiving. “He always had a bright smile on his face when he came back, said, ‘I just went skydiving!’”

  • Man Skydives Without a Parachute

    Man Skydives Without a Parachute

    You’ve probably seen videos of people skydiving or base jumping using a wingsuit. This allows extreme sports enthusiasts to gain some lift while in free fall, allowing them to fly past obstacles at terminal velocity. It’s amazing to watch.

    Typically these free-fallers deploy a parachute at the end of their flight. While the wingsuit slows one’s rate of free fall, it doesn’t come close to a speed that makes it safe to land.

    A stuntman in Britain by the name of Gary Connery decided to test that theory, by landing on a stack of boxes without deploying a chute.

    The 42-year-old leapt from a helicopter 2,400 feet in the air. The landing platform was constructed of cardboard boxes, stacked 12 feet high, 40 feet wide and 350 feet across. It took 100 volunteers six hours to construct.

    Landing on all those boxes at that speed looked painful, but as Connery explained to Sky News, it was the soft landing he hoped for: “It was so comfortable, so soft. My calculations obviously worked out and I’m glad they did.”

    Connery, who has done stunt work for films like Batman Begins and The Beach, is already planning his next big stunt, which he promises will “be as crazy as this”.

    [SkyNews via: BusinessInsider]

  • Sky Diving Accident Caught on Camera (video)

    A first time jumper and her instructor were involved in a freak skydiving accident when an updraft shot them 40 feet in the air as they approached landing.

    The unidentified woman in Collegeville, PA and her instructor at Keystone Skydive Center, Chad Galbraith, were doing a routine tandem skydive, and everything went smoothly. Until they were about thirty feet off the ground, when a sudden updraft shot them in the air another 40 feet. They landed hard on the ground and the parachute continued to drag them down the runway. Luckily, Galbraith was able to cut them free before any additional damage could be done.

    The incident left them both badly injured. Galbraith suffered a serious lower back injury requiring two surgeries, and the unidentified woman sustained cracked ribs and a collapsed lung. Both are expected to make a full recovery.

    “All of a sudden, the updraft stopped and the wind came from the side. It folded the parachute underneath and put the parachute into a spin,” said Marc Nadeau, a skydive worker who witnessed the accident. “They landed hard on their side into the grass and were dragged into the runway. At that time the instructor was able to jettison — cut away — the main parachute to keep themselves from being dragged any further.”

    The lead image is stock. The video is real.
    [source: Huff Post]