Skydiver becomes first person to jump and land without chute

[Baitball Blogger]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A 42-year-old skydiver with more than 18,000 jumps made history when he became the first person to survive a leap without a parachute.

After a two-minute freefall, Luke Aikins flipped onto his back at the last second and landed dead center into a 100-by-100-foot net at the Big Sky movie ranch on the outskirts of Simi Valley in California. Cheers rose from those who gathered to watch the stunt, including his family.

The jump — from the death-defying altitude of 25,000 feet — makes Aikins the only skydiver ever to go from plane to planet Earth without a parachute.

As the cheers erupted, Aikins quickly climbed out, walked over and hugged his wife, Monica, who had been watching from the ground with their 4-year-old son, Logan, and other family members.


http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20160731/efb3c617-5cf8-40f8-8f11-8177baeb7b56

[pangaia]

1. I'll bet his wife is happy.

[underpants]

2. Watched it. He made it by maybe 30 feet.

Craaaaaazy.

[Cooley Hurd]

5. If anything, he's skilled at nailing a postage stamp...

That said, it was pretty cool! Dar Robinson's smiling from above.

[Go Vols]

3. Cool

[lancer78]

4. Evil Knievel(sp)

Is no longer the greatest daredevil. This man is.

[FarPoint]

6. Maybe Trump will try this for attention.

[uppityperson]

7. "without serious injury". It's really cool, but they keep missing these words

[caraher]

9. Very important point

Others have survived such falls, which were generally unintentional.

I'm glad he came out OK, but I'm guessing too many of the upcoming copycats will be seriously hurt or killed, so I do not celebrate this dubious "achievement."

[unc70]

11. I have met some who have draped and kived

All had started out with a chute, but something failed. One of my employees years ago was a champion skydiver. At a large party celebrating a milestone for him and several friends, several people there had landed without a working chute and survived without a net. Even some film of them. They mourned several others.

It was a wild crowd. Probably my last party the police came on three separate occasions.

[Orrex]

8. Officials called the landing a net positive

[Gman]

10. A wife, 4 YO son and other family

And this self absorbed adrenaline junkie runs a known very high risk of killing himself for essentially nothing.

[LWolf]

12. I wonder

about the trauma incurred by that 4 yo if something had gone wrong.

[Gman]

15. Exactly my point. I have this awful image of

The kid yelling "dad", as he goes splat. Makes me sick, literally, to think what it would do to the kid.

[LP2K12]

13. Whoa. Who are to to judge another's career path.

He quite literally is a stunt professional. He does this for a living, to support his wife and child. He even worked on one of the Iron Man films.

Ever think his wife knew the risks prior to marrying him?

Less hate in this word is an important thing.

[Gman]

14. If you can point to one thing in 18,000 or whatever jumps

That is necessary and positive to put his life at risk like that I might agree. Oh, he enjoys it, they say. Well a junkie enjoys heroin too.

The guy is a self centered adrenaline junkie. Just like a heroin junkie, the adrenaline is more important than anything else.

and the kid and mom were probably there to just as soon watch him go splat and scrape him up. A kid deserves better than that. Something the kid would carry the rest of his life.

[Ms. Toad]

16. He and his wife are adults. They can make their own choices.

Their 4 year old son is not. Given the risks involved, and the consequences of failure, his 4 year old son should not have been along to view the potential disaster.

[smirkymonkey]

17. Exactly what I was thinking.

What a fool.

[roamer65]

18. Looks like a perfectly good airplane.

Even with a parachute, I wouldn't jump out of it.