Can You Fall from a Plane and Survive? They Did.

it's 1944. this guy is joseph herman and he's up at 18 000 feet without a parachute just a few seconds ago he was piloting an airplane on a mission to germany normally pilots and crew wear parachutes inside the plane but joseph liked to be comfortable so he took off that heavy parachute backpack suddenly his plane was hit he ordered all crew members to evacuate and ran for his parachute but seconds later the plane exploded the explosion threw joseph out of the plane and he found himself hurtling around the night sky without a parachute in a panic he began to stare at the ground looking for a safe place to land a river lake or swimming pool wasn't an option hitting water at high speed is almost the same as hitting concrete snow drifts are great if he could find one deep enough he'd have at least a semi-soft landing but it's november and there's no snow anywhere the best option aim for the woods tree branches and bushes might slow his fall enough so he could survive hitting the ground these thoughts took joseph some time and now he was at only six thousand feet that's when a miracle happened he smashed into something and just out of reflex grabbed onto it at first he thought it was a random bit of the plane falling down to earth but no it was someone's legs it turned out to be a member of his crew who had just opened his parachute holding on to his new best friend for life joseph had almost reached the ground both officers prepared for impact but the parachute was only designed for one person with double the weight it couldn't drop at a safe speed even though joseph got a massive hit to the chest courtesy of his parachute partner he still managed to stick the landing he suffered several injuries but still he survived a fall from 18 thousand feet but that's not even the record for a free fall without a parachute meet vesna volovich about fifty years ago she was a trainee flight attendant and was like most days serving passengers in the cabin the plane was flying at over 33 000 feet when it just broke apart vesna survived the initial chaos and began her free fall she immediately lost consciousness and had absolutely no memory of what she was doing as she sped towards the earth a few minutes later she touched down well smashed down and she survived a local forester found her among the wreckage of the plane she suffered a ton of injuries but after 16 months she made a full recovery she even wanted to return to her job as a flight attendant she had no memory of the crash or the fall maybe she was saved by the trees in the snow and a huge shout out goes to the hero forest ranger who found her and gave her life-saving first aid in one of those classic coincidences vesna wasn't even supposed to be on that plane in the first place the airline made a mistake and put our survivor on the flight instead of another girl with the same name many people said that the universe realized its mistake and gave the girl a second chance this man is luke akins and he did one of the craziest free jumps ever with no parachute obviously so we're at 25 000 feet four people jump out of a plane and only three of them have a parachute the poor guy without a chute is our hero the rest are the crew they film luke's jump and help him stay in the right direction they have smoke flares attached to their feet so luke can see them through the clouds now we're at 17 000 feet luke's speed is now 150 miles per hour and his pulse is almost three times his resting heart rate about halfway through a crew member helps luke remove his oxygen mask the higher the altitude the less oxygen there is so when luke left the plane he needed a mask to stop him from passing out but now our hero is breathing on his own again five thousand feet the other team members open their parachutes and luke is left all alone he approaches the landing site it's a giant net the size of about an eighth of a soccer field it's stretched between four large cranes each crane has special spotlights to help luke find the perfect landing spot on a net suspended 20 stories up from the ground luke's right over his target and just before landing he flips over onto his back to land safely three two one touchdown land down whatever you call it the crowd goes wild and luke gets some serious bragging rights a stunt like this takes nearly two years of training and practice luke akins had already skydived 18 000 times before so on average a free fall lasts 2.5 minutes math math math math math so luke's spent 31 days in free fall how about jumping from five times higher than that a freezing cold 128 000 feet this thing is called a high altitude balloon it's used to fly higher than seven miles up after about two hours this thing took future record holder felix baumgartner into the stratosphere to jump from that high he needed a special spacesuit with an oxygen reserve and additional heating when the hatch opened felix needed another 15 minutes to get his mind right then all he had to do was take a simple step and he was off after 20 seconds he had reached a monumental 435 miles per hour and 30 seconds later he reached his maximum speed of 843 miles per hour felix flew faster than many supersonic airplanes and even broke the sound barrier down on the ground a bunch of people even heard the supersonic boom just like the one you hear when planes hit the speed of sound it would have definitely stunned felix but he was going so fast the boom happened far above him much more dangerous was the force on his body after about a minute of flight he started spinning at warp speed his body was experiencing more g-force than astronauts taking off in a space shuttle if he had completely lost consciousness the jump would have ended way differently but after 13 seconds the spinning stopped and he managed to stabilize himself after three and a half minutes he started to slow down when you get closer to the surface the air gets thicker so you fall slower four minutes and 16 seconds of free fall felix released his parachute but it was too soon the problem was that his visor started to fog up because of some heating problems so he didn't know exactly how high he was just to be safe he released his parachute a little early he said he felt like he was floating in water not knowing which way was up nine minutes later he finally touched down on solid ground he had just set several world records highest jump and greatest distance and speed of a free fall plus he's the only person to break the sound barrier without using an engine but his highest jump record was soon broken alan eustis jumped from nearly 136 000 feet so sealed spacesuits and special parachutes are a must but what if you found yourself at 130 000 feet without any equipment at all it would be about 30 degrees outside so you wouldn't exactly freeze but as you drop down you'd be dealing with around negative 70. a warm jacket might come in handy but the real threat would be the lack of oxygen if you want to stay alert you just gotta have an oxygen mask say you have a warm spacesuit and oxygen what do you do now you need to get into a position that creates maximum air resistance spread your arms and legs point your chest down and tilt your head back now you have time to choose a good place to land remember water is not your friend look for snow or woods once you've chosen a spot you need to prepare for impact why not follow luke akin's example turn over on your back press your legs against your chest and cover your head with your hands it's probably still gonna hurt though

Channel: BRIGHT SIDE

Views: 152,549

Rating: 4.8980269 out of 5

Keywords: bright side, brightside, survival, survival stories, true story, plane crash survivor, how to survive plane crash, survival tactics, based on true stories, true story of survival, people who survived, fall without parachute survive, can you survive falling without parachute, how to survive falling from heights, people who survived the impossible, skydive from space, can you jump from space, can you parachute from space, parachute from space, Felix Baumgartner

Id: 5RwSgw6Jgm8

Length: 9min 21sec (561 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 15 2021