An American skydiver has become the first to jump 25,000 feet from a plane without a parachute and land in a net.
Luke Aikins, 42, completed the record-breaking Stride Gum Presents Heaven Sent stunt at the Big Sky movie ranch in Simi Valley, California, which was broadcast live on the Fox network on Saturday evening.
He hit the 100-by-100-foot net perfectly, quickly climbed out of it and walked over to hug his our-year-old son Logan and wife Monica who had been watching with other family members.
'I'm almost levitating, it's incredible,' the jubilant skydiver said, raising his hands over his head as his wife held their son, who dozed in her arms.
'This thing just happened! I can't even get the words out of my mouth,' he added as he thanked the dozens of crew members who spent two years helping him prepare for the jump, including those who assembled the fishing trawler-like net and made sure it really worked.
Just before climbing into a plane, Aikins said the Screen Actors Guild required him to wear a parachute but he indicated he wouldn't open it.
A few minutes before the jump one of the show's hosts said the requirement had been lifted and Aikins left the plane without the chute.
Aikins didn't say what prompted the original restriction, and representatives for the show and the Screen Actors Guild did not immediately respond to phone and email messages.
Aikins said wearing it would actually make it harder for him to properly put himself over the 100-foot-by-100-foot net and more dangerous because he would have its canister on his back when he hit the net at about 120 miles per hour.
'I'm going all the way to the net, no question about it,' he said from the plane. 'I'll just have to deal with the consequences when I land of wearing the parachute on my back and what it's going to do to my body.'
The jump was broadcast live as part of a one-hour TV special but with a slight delay and a warning to viewers not to try this themselves.
For the first 10,000 feet of the fall Aikins used an oxygen tank - one of the three other skydivers who jumped with him was in charge of collecting the discarded tank.
Another one carried a camera and the final one trailed smoke so people on the ground could follow his descent.
The trio opened their chutes at 5,000 feet, leaving Aikins alone.
In total the jump lasted about two minutes, just before he reached the net he flipped onto his back at the last second and landed perfectly to cheers from those gathered to watch.
'My vision was always proper preparation and that if you train right you can make anything happen,' Aikins said in a Facebook post after the jump, in which he also thanked his supporters.
Aikins has completed more than 18,000 jumps in the past and done stunts for the Ironman 3 movie.
(Daily Mail)
Luke Aikins, 42, completed the record-breaking Stride Gum Presents Heaven Sent stunt at the Big Sky movie ranch in Simi Valley, California, which was broadcast live on the Fox network on Saturday evening.
He hit the 100-by-100-foot net perfectly, quickly climbed out of it and walked over to hug his our-year-old son Logan and wife Monica who had been watching with other family members.
'I'm almost levitating, it's incredible,' the jubilant skydiver said, raising his hands over his head as his wife held their son, who dozed in her arms.
'This thing just happened! I can't even get the words out of my mouth,' he added as he thanked the dozens of crew members who spent two years helping him prepare for the jump, including those who assembled the fishing trawler-like net and made sure it really worked.
Just before climbing into a plane, Aikins said the Screen Actors Guild required him to wear a parachute but he indicated he wouldn't open it.
A few minutes before the jump one of the show's hosts said the requirement had been lifted and Aikins left the plane without the chute.
Aikins didn't say what prompted the original restriction, and representatives for the show and the Screen Actors Guild did not immediately respond to phone and email messages.
Aikins said wearing it would actually make it harder for him to properly put himself over the 100-foot-by-100-foot net and more dangerous because he would have its canister on his back when he hit the net at about 120 miles per hour.
'I'm going all the way to the net, no question about it,' he said from the plane. 'I'll just have to deal with the consequences when I land of wearing the parachute on my back and what it's going to do to my body.'
The jump was broadcast live as part of a one-hour TV special but with a slight delay and a warning to viewers not to try this themselves.
For the first 10,000 feet of the fall Aikins used an oxygen tank - one of the three other skydivers who jumped with him was in charge of collecting the discarded tank.
Another one carried a camera and the final one trailed smoke so people on the ground could follow his descent.
The trio opened their chutes at 5,000 feet, leaving Aikins alone.
In total the jump lasted about two minutes, just before he reached the net he flipped onto his back at the last second and landed perfectly to cheers from those gathered to watch.
'My vision was always proper preparation and that if you train right you can make anything happen,' Aikins said in a Facebook post after the jump, in which he also thanked his supporters.
Aikins has completed more than 18,000 jumps in the past and done stunts for the Ironman 3 movie.
(Daily Mail)
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