US skydiver jumps without parachute; lands safely in net

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong).

“Aikins’ leap represents the culmination of a 26-year career that will set a personal and world record for the highest jump without a parachute or wing suit”, his spokesman Justin Aclin said in an email.

A fearless pioneer has done a world first – jumping from a plane 7600 metres above the ground without a parachute.

A skydiver who jumped from an airplane without using a parachute or wingsuit became the first person to land that way safely.

The other three will then open their chutes at 5,000 feet, leaving Aikins alone with no one to hand him a chute in midair as has been done before.

As 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.

“I’m nearly levitating. It’s incredible, this thing that just happened”, Luke said after making the “perfect landing”.

After months of planning, Aikins answered that question in a special live event called Stride Gum Presents: Heaven Sent.

Aikins says he heard from the Screen Actors Guild that the jump couldn’t go on unless he wore a parachute.

In a live broadcast from the plane he’ll jump from Aikins says wearing a parachute will make the jump more unsafe because he’ll have its canister on his back when he hits the net at about 120 miles per hour. If he had to wear it he said he wouldn’t bother to pull the ripcord anyway.

But his skill was put to the test Saturday night when he jumped out of an airplane wearing just the clothes on his back.

“We’d been seeking an agreement and they wouldn’t allow us to sign one”, said a source connected with the show. Aikins left the plane without the chute.

When his friend Chris Talley came up with the idea two years ago, Aikins acknowledges he turned it down cold.

“I kind of laugh and I say, ‘Ok, that’s great”. I’ll help you find somebody to do it. But it’s not for me. He’s been racking them up at several hundred a year ever since.

There was a lot of method behind Mr Aikins’ madness: the 42-year-old has made more than 18,000 skydiving jumps and runs a skydiving school in Washington state.