Skydiver Luke Aikins celebrates with son Logan after jumping 25,000 feet from an airplane without a parachute or wing suit as part of 'Stride Gum Presets Heaven Sent' on July 30, 2016 in Simi Valley, California.Mark Davis
If you think sky diving is scary, try doing it from twice the usual height and without a parachute. After two minutes of free falling, you must position yourself to land on a net less than half the size of a football field, spread out 200 feet above the earth.
On Saturday, Luke Aikins took that challenge. He was the first person ever to attempt a skydive with neither a parachute nor a wingsuit – and, in a feat broadcast live on Fox, the first ever to complete one.
Mr. Aikins began his dive at an altitude of 25,000 feet. Viewers watched him plummet, legs and arms spread, stomach down. Around 18,000 feet, he removed his oxygen mask and passed it to one of the three parachuted assistants diving with him. He aimed for the centre of the net, guided by GPS and lights. Seconds before impact, he flipped onto his back and landed safely in a net set up over the California desert.
He lay cocooned in the net for a few moments, hands apparently over his face. Then he clambered out, into the arms of his wife, Monica, with whom he has a four-year-old son.
"We did and cannot thank everyone enough for the support," Mr. Aikins wrote on Facebook shortly after the jump. "My vision was always proper preparation and that if you train right you can make anything happen. Thank you!!!!"
The stunt, planned for two years, almost did not happen. At first, Mr. Aikins, 42, who has skydived 18,000 times since he was 12 years old, felt the idea was a bit much even for him.
"Like any normal, sane person, I said: 'Thank you, but no thank you. I have a wife and a son, and I've got a life to live,'" he told People magazine. "Then, two weeks went by and I kept waking up in the middle of the night thinking, 'If somebody said you had to do this, how could it be done?'"
Then, just two days ago, SAG-AFTRA, the screen actors' and broadcasters' union, issued a "do not work" order barring its members from taking part in the production unless Mr. Aikins agreed to wear a parachute – something that, Mr. Aikins said in the live broadcast, would actually make the jump more dangerous by adding weight to his body, thus increasing the force of the impact.
As Mr. Aikins' plane approached the starting point of his dive, above Simi Valley, Calif., he strapped on the parachute but told viewers he would not open it. At the last minute, the union dropped its objection, and Mr. Aikins removed the parachute before jumping from the plane.
Mr. Aikins' publicist, Peter Moran, did not respond to an e-mailed request for an interview with his client Saturday evening. But speaking to reporters at the scene, Mr. Aikins was euphoric.
"I'm almost levitating. It's incredible, this thing that just happened," he told reporters after climbing out of the net, according to E! Online. "The words I want to say, I can't even get out of my mouth."