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“It felt like forever, just looking at him … We stood there in, like, shock just going, ‘He has to be dead,'” said Amber Sweet-Smith, who saw the injured skydiver in her yard in Oceanside moments after he fell last week. “We usually hear the screaming or, you know, people laughing — just in the air, and he heard like an unusual scream, looked up, saw the guy and went, probably in his head, ‘Oh ****, he’s going to hit our house,'” “It felt like the whole wall shook. … It was scary,” “One of the other parachuter guys said...

Jordan Hatmaker was skydiving in November when the worst thing that could happen happened: Her parachute didn’t open. The plane was more than 13,000 feet above the ground when she jumped, and she hit the ground at about 80 miles per hour. Hatmaker’s reserve parachute did actually deploy, but it made her main parachute pop out at the same time. “They pulled away from each other in the air and then dragged me down in kind of a spiral motion,” she explained. Once she realized she was going down, Hatmaker had one minute before she hit the ground. Hatmaker believes...

An apparent skydiver whose parachute became entangled in power lines about 30 feet off the ground in Lake Elsinore has been taken to a hospital after being rescued on Tuesday... The incident was reported around 11:10 a.m. at Mission Trail and Vine Street...The area is near a local skydiving center, though it’s unclear if that was where the flight originated. In addition to firefighters, Southern California Edison and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department responded to help get the individual down. Crews cut power lines and used a safety basket to get him back on the ground a little more than...

A recent parachuting accident in Washington left a Seattle man dead, according to KMAS. A Facebook group called Kapowsin Skydivers said the man who died was 27-year-old Shaznee Riyal of Seattle. According to the Mason County Sheriff's Office, Riyal was jumping with Kapowsin Air Sports with a parachute in Shelton on April 11. Chief Deputy Ryan Spurling said the skydiver performed a stunt too close to the ground, causing his body to slam "into the earth with great force." Officials said the impact killed Riyal. The Federal Avian Administration is investigating the incident. Riyal's family in Sri Lanka started a...

28-year-old woman was parachuting with a group of seven people through the Lodi Parachute Center, which is just south of the crash site. The woman's identity has not been released, but CHP says she was from Colombia. Everyone else in her group landed safely. ...Just last October, 62-year-old Nena Lowry Mason from Dillon, Colorado, fell to her death after her main parachute malfunctioned. Her death marked the 19th fatality since the center opened in the early 1980s. After trouble in 2016, 20 center instructors were suspended and it was determined 120 more needed more training as the U.S. Parachute Association...

caused the skydiver’s death, according to the agency. The FAA said she was using her own equipment. Usually, FAA probes into such situations are limited to if the chute was packed properly and by the appropriate person. Fellow skydivers said she was experienced in the extreme sport. Meanwhile, the skydiving center itself has a decades-long history of deaths and was investigated by federal agents earlier this year, according to KTXL. Nineteen people have died there since the facility opened in the early 1980s, with six of them between 2016 and 2018. After trouble in 2016, 20 center instructors were suspended...

Luke Aikins, 42, a veteran of 18,000 jumps, completed the stunt without mishap, landing almost in the middle of the 100ft by 100ft net. Taking only a few moments to regain his composure, Mr Aikins dusted himself off, clambered out of the net and jumped into the arms of his very relieved wife, Monica. The leap, which was broadcast by Fox, was watched by other members of the family and a crowd of well-wishers packed into an improvised spectator stand in the California desert.

Picture of Luke Akins during a training run View Images Luke Aikins is training his body to be able to maneuver through the unpredictability of the wind. PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDY FARRINGTON By Andrew Bisharat PUBLISHED JULY 29, 2016 Luke Aikins, 42, has deployed a parachute around 18,000 times over the last two and a half decades of his skydiving and BASE jumping career. But this Saturday, he’s going to find out if he can get away without one. After two years of training, planning, and preparation, Aikins plans to jump out of a Cessna airplane at 25,000 feet (7,620 meters)....

It sounds like a remarkable story, almost unbelievable: Anders Helstrup went skydiving nearly two years ago near Hedmark, Norway and while he didn’t realize it at the time, when he reviewed the footage taken by two cameras fixed to his helmet during the dive, he saw a rock plummet past him. He took it to experts and they realized he had captured a meteorite falling during its “dark flight” — when it has been slowed by atmospheric braking, and has cooled and is no longer luminous. Norwegian astrophysicist Pål Brekke confirmed to Universe Today that the story is true. “I...

For the first time ever, a meteor has been captured on camera falling through the sky after it has finished burning. And that’s not all: the baseball-sized space rock nearly slammed into the man behind the camera.

A skydiver has died after he fell out of his parachute harness during a jump at SkyDance Skydiving in Davis. Yolo County sheriff's Sgt. Hector Bautista says the 23-year-old man made the jump in Davis over the Yolo County Airport at about 6 p.m. Saturday. He died at a hospital. His name hasn't been released but Bautista says he was an experienced skydiver who lived in San Jose. Yolo County officials said they were sent to the scene around 6 p.m. Deputies located the body of the deceased skydiver about 1 mile southeast of the SkyDance drop zone. His canopy...

“She's a redneck boy's dream come true. Theresa Vail is a bowhunter, an M-16 sharpshooter, skydiver, national guard soldier, grease monkey, and also Miss Kansas. She's been a motorcycle racing queen and can skin out a deer with the best of them. And if that wasn't enough to melt your heart, she is also devastatingly beautiful. She is not, to say the least, your typical beauty queen contestant. She will also differ from past and present contestants in another way. She intends to let the whole world see her tattoos, which include the Serenity Prayer and the army's medical insignia....

Now that the dust has settled in the New Mexico desert where supersonic skydiver "Fearless Felix" Baumgartner landed safely on his feet, researchers are exhilarated over the possibility his feat could someday help save the lives of pilots and space travelers in a disaster.

Extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner made a death-defying free fall that made him the first skydiver to break the sound barrier, according to organizers. In a journey that lasted over nine minutes, he fell at a speed of 1,342.8 km/h, which broke the sound barrier — 1,200 km/h. That amounts to Mach 1.24, which is faster than the speed of sound. No one has ever reached that speed wearing only a high-tech suit. Baumgartner, now known as 'Fearless Felix', has broken the record for the highest free fall ever, the fastest free fall and the highest manned balloon ride, said organizers.

An Austrian daredevil plans to leap from nearly 23 miles above the Earth on Oct. 8 in a supersonic plunge that, if successful, will be the world's highest-ever skydive. If all goes according to plan, a helium-filled balloon will lift off from Roswell, N.M., on Oct. 8 and carry Felix Baumgartner's custom-built capsule to an altitude of 120,000 feet (36,576 meters). The daredevil will then step out of the capsule into the void, breaking a skydiving record that has stood for 52 years.

Skydiving daredevil Felix Baumgartner is more than halfway toward his goal of setting a world record for the highest jump. Baumgartner lifted off Thursday for a test jump from Roswell, N.M., aboard a 100-foot helium balloon. He rode inside a pressurized capsule to 71,581 feet — 13.6 miles — and then jumped. He parachuted to a safe landing, according to project spokeswoman Trish Medalen. He's aiming for nearly 23 miles this summer. The record is 19.5 miles. "The view is amazing, way better than I thought," Baumgartner said after the practice jump, in remarks provided by his representatives. Thursday's rehearsal...

Daredevil Felix Baumgartner this morning landed from his 18-mile dive back to Earth from the edge of space, in a plummet that reached a speed of more than 500 mph. Mission Control gave the go ahead this morning for the launch, saying "God Speed Felix" from Roswell, N.M., where the mission is being hosted. Baumgartner, an Austrian national, was lifted in a capsule carried afloat by a huge helium balloon. Click Here for Pictures: Felix Baumgartner's Dive The balloon took 90 minutes to get to 90,000 feet. The crane holding the capsule went up as fast as it could to...

A skydiver's worst fear is having the parachute fail to properly deploy, and if this occurs at 15,000 feet, death would seem certain. But Michael Holmes is living proof that humans are remarkably resilient, and that blind luck -- or miracles -- sometimes come into play. Holmes, whose frightening plunge was captured on video (see below), landed in dense vegetation and not only survived with only moderate injuries, he continues to skydive Holmes' amazing ordeal, which occurred five years ago in New Zealand, will be featured Sunday night at 10 and 10:30 (Eastern and Pacific) in the National Geographic series,...

Belgian parachutist guilty of murder by sabotageRobert Wielaard, Associated Press Thursday, October 21, 2010 (10-21) 04:00 PDT Brussels - A jealous schoolteacher was found guilty of murder Wednesday for sabotaging the parachute of a rival in a love triangle, causing her to crash to her death. The verdict against Els Clottemans, 26, ended a monthlong trial that revealed no hard proof that she had sabotaged Els Van Doren's parachute so that neither it nor a safety chute opened during a Nov. 18, 2006, jump over eastern Belgium. **SNIP** Her trial opened Sept. 24 with the accused sitting nervously near the...