Is It Even Remotely Possible To Live...

[Kramer 0]

Say someone jumps out of a plane at 10,000 and neither of their chutes open...or hell, they're not even wearing a rig, is there even the slightest chance that someone could live if they hit the ground?

Has anyone ever heard of someone surviving after impacting at a very high rate of speed?

I had one of those "chute didn't open" dreams last night, and when I woke up, I started to wonder if I could live when I hit the ground....

Let's hear it...

-Kramer

The FAKE KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMER!!!!!!!!!

[darkvapor 0]

Old... but should answer your question sufficiently.

Oh.. and remember.. it doesn't matter if you exit from 1500 feet or 10000 feet. Terminal is terminal.

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Should you find yourself falling from around 30 000' AGL without a rig or a hope in hell, here is a freefall survival guide to study. learn and remember...

Admit it: You want to be the sole survivor of an airline disaster. You aren't looking for a disaster to happen, but if it does, you see yourself coming through it. I'm here to tell you that you're not out of touch with reality—you can do it. Sure, you'll take a few hits, and I'm not saying there won't be some sweaty flashbacks later on, but you'll make it. You'll sit up in your hospital bed and meet the press. Refreshingly, you will keep God out of your public comments, knowing that it's unfair to sing His praises when all of your dead fellow-passengers have no platform from which to offer an alternative view.
Let's say your jet blows apart at 35,000 feet. You exit the aircraft, and you begin to descend independently. Now what?
First of all, you're starting off a full mile higher than Everest, so after a few gulps of disappointing air you're going to black out. This is not a bad thing. If you have ever tried to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you know what I mean. This brief respite from the ambient fear and chaos will come to an end when you wake up at about 15,000 feet. Here begins the final phase of your descent, which will last about a minute. It is a time of planning and preparation. Look around you. What equipment is available? None? Are you sure? Look carefully. Perhaps a shipment of folded parachutes was in the cargo hold, and the blast opened the box and scattered them. One of these just might be within reach. Grab it, put it on, and hit the silk. You're sitting pretty.
Other items can be helpful as well. Let nature be your guide. See how yon maple seed gently wafts to earth on gossamer wings. Look around for a proportionate personal vehicle—some large, flat, aerodynamically suitable piece of wreckage. Mount it and ride, cowboy! Remember: molecules are your friends. You want a bunch of molecules of solid matter hitting a bunch of atmospheric molecules in order to reduce your rate of acceleration.
As you fall, you're going to realize that your previous visualization of this experience has been off the mark. You have seen yourself as a loose, free body, and you've imagined yourself in the belly-down, limbs-out position (good: you remembered the molecules). But, pray tell, who unstrapped your seat belt? You could very well be riding your seat (or it could be riding you; if so, straighten up and fly right!); you might still be connected to an entire row of seats or to a row and some of the attached cabin structure.
If thus connected, you have some questions to address. Is your new conveyance air-worthy? If your entire row is intact and the seats are occupied, is the passenger next to you now going to feel free to break the code of silence your body language enjoined upon him at takeoff? If you choose to go it alone, simply unclasp your seat belt and drift free. Resist the common impulse to use the wreckage fragment as a "jumping-off point" to reduce your plunge-rate, not because you will thereby worsen the chances of those you leave behind (who are they kidding? they're goners!), but just because the effect of your puny jump is so small compared with the alarming Newtonian forces at work.
Just how fast are you going? Imagine standing atop a train going 120 mph, and the train goes through a tunnel but you do not. You hit the wall above the opening at 120 mph. That's how fast you will be going at the end of your fall. Yes, it's discouraging, but proper planning requires that you know the facts. You're used to seeing things fall more slowly. You're used to a jump from a swing or a jungle gym, or a fall from a three-story building on TV action news. Those folks are not going 120 mph. They will not bounce. You will bounce. Your body will be found some distance away from the dent you make in the soil (or crack in the concrete). Make no mistake: you will be motoring.
At this point you will think: trees. It's a reasonable thought. The concept of "breaking the fall" is powerful, as is the hopeful message implicit in the nursery song "Rock-a-bye, Baby," which one must assume from the affect of the average singer tells the story not of a baby's death but of its survival. You will want a tall tree with an excurrent growth pattern—a single, undivided trunk with lateral branches, delicate on top and thicker as you cascade downward. A conifer is best. The redwood is attractive for the way it rises to shorten your fall, but a word of caution here: the redwood's lowest branches grow dangerously high from the ground; having gone 35,000 feet, you don't want the last 50 feet to ruin everything. The perfectly tiered Norfolk Island pine is a natural safety net, so if you're near New Zealand, you're in luck, pilgrim. When crunch time comes, elongate your body and hit the tree limbs at a perfectly flat angle as close to the trunk as possible. Think!
Snow is good—soft, deep, drifted snow. Snow is lovely. Remember that you are the pilot and your body is the aircraft. By tilting forward and putting your hands at your side, you can modify your pitch and make progress not just vertically but horizontally as well. As you go down 15,000 feet, you can also go sideways two-thirds of that distance—that's two miles! Choose your landing zone. You be the boss.
If your search discloses no trees or snow, the parachutist's "five-point landing" is useful to remember even in the absence of a parachute. Meet the ground with your feet together, and fall sideways in such a way that five parts of your body successively absorb the shock, equally and in this order: feet, calf, thigh, buttock, and shoulder. 120 divided by 5 = 24. Not bad! 24 mph is only a bit faster than the speed at which experienced parachutists land. There will be some bruising and breakage but no loss of consciousness to delay your press conference. Just be sure to apportion the 120-mph blow in equal fifths. Concentrate!
Much will depend on your attitude. Don't let negative thinking ruin your descent. If you find yourself dwelling morbidly on your discouraging starting point of seven miles up, think of this: Thirty feet is the cutoff for fatality in a fall. That is, most who fall from thirty feet or higher die. Thirty feet! It's nothing! Pity the poor sod who falls from such a "height." What kind of planning time does he have?
Think of the pluses in your situation. For example, although you fall faster and faster for the first fifteen seconds or so, you soon reach "terminal velocity"—the point at which atmospheric drag resists gravity's acceleration in a perfect standoff. Not only do you stop speeding up, but because the air is thickening as you fall, you actually begin to slow down. With every foot that you drop, you are going slower and slower.
There's more. When parachutists focus on a landing zone, sometimes they become so fascinated with it that they forget to pull the ripcord. Since you probably have no ripcord, "target fixation" poses no danger. Count your blessings.
Think of others who have gone before you. Think of Vesna Vulovic, a flight attendant who in 1972 fell 33,000 feet in the tail of an exploded DC-9 jetliner; she landed in snow and lived. Vesna knew about molecules.
Think of Joe Hermann of the Royal Australian Air Force, blown out of his bomber in 1944 without a parachute. He found himself falling through the night sky amid airplane debris and wildly grabbed a piece of it. It turned out to be not debris at all, but rather a fellow flyer in the process of pulling his ripcord. Joe hung on and, as a courtesy, hit the ground first, breaking the fall of his savior and a mere two ribs of his own. Joe was not a quitter. Don't you be.
Think of Nick Alkemade, an RAF tailgunner who jumped from his flaming turret without a parachute and fell 18,000 feet. When he came to and saw stars overhead, he lit a cigarette. He would later describe the fall as "a pleasant experience." Nick's trick: fir trees, underbrush, and snow.
But in one important regard, Nick is a disappointment. He gave up. As he plummeted to Germany, he concluded he was going to die and felt "a strange peace." This is exactly the wrong kind of thinking. It will get you nowhere but dead fast. You cannot give up and plan aggressively at the same time.
To conclude, here are some words that might help you avoid such a collapse of resolve on your way down.

[Casch 0]

99.9999999999999999% of the time you will die. Going from 0-120 instantly WILL kill you, period. The physics of it are too incredible to survive. But, in ideal conditions it IS possible to live, and a couple have. Say you're wearing a really baggy jumpsuit so your fallrate is around 100 or so, you hit a really big tree in such a way that the branches bend/break enough to not kill you but slow you down enough to land in the nice powdery snowbank over the 1ft thick bed of soft pineneedles over nicely porous dirt. Then you MIGHT live. And don't even think about landing in water, that will also kill you. Water is basically a solid at those speeds...think belly flop...

In my dreams however, I hit the ground all the time, then I get up and hope nobody saw it, and get on the next load without figuring out why there was nothing above my head

[Squeak 17]

i have dreams like that too,
I get up and think hmm thAt's not supossed to happen

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[larry 0]

It has happened. I remember reading about someone landing in a swamp or marshy area and living.

How does that saying go? In case of a double mal, track for your rigger!

“Now click your heels together 3 times so you can return to Kansas to live in poverty with your teetotaling, dirt farming aunt and uncle!” paraphrased Prof. Farnsworth

[mr2mk1g 10]

It has happened before:

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In March of 1944, Nicholas Alkemade was the tail gunner in a British Lancaster bomber on a night mission to Berlin when his plane was attacked by German fighters. When the captain ordered the crew to bail out, Alkemade looked back into the plane and discovered that his parachute was in flames. He chose to jump without a parachute rather than to stay in the burning plane. He fell 18,000 feet, landing in trees, underbrush, and drifted snow. He twisted his knee and had some cuts, but was otherwise alright.

and check out this link to a couple of other stories:

http://www.manbottle.com/trivia/Terminal_Velocity.htm_answer.htm

[Blahr 0]

I cant believe that I got all the way through this and you left me hanging waiting for those words of conclusion that will never come

[darkvapor 0]

Oh.. hahaha. I'm sorry! I didn't even read all of it. I thought it ended where I cut it off.

Here is the last part:

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"Keep a-goin'." (Frank L. Stanton)
"Failure is not an option." (Ed Harris, as the guy in Apollo 13 who says, "Failure is not an option")
"'Hope' is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops-at all." (Emily Dickinson)

[CrazyIvan 0]

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Going from 0-120 instantly WILL kill you, period

So why we are not all dead?, I think you mean the other way around.

__________________________________________
Blue Skies and May the Force be with you.

[nacmacfeegle 0]

"they're not even wearing a rig, is there even the slightest chance that someone could live if they hit the ground?"

Yes, more info here
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=267960;search_string=survivors;#267960

--------------------

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[Shivon 0]

Well, it works for cats (assuming they are in freefall long enough to reach terminal - any less time and they splat). Aparently once they hit terminal they 'relax', and that makes their little adventure more survivable.

[mr2mk1g 10]

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***
Going from 0-120 instantly WILL kill you, period

So why we are not all dead?, I think you mean the other way around.


No no... he was right, going from 0-120 instantly WILL kill you. You subject the body to exactly the same force as going from 120-0, just in the oposit "direction".

I don't know about you, but it takes me about 12 sec to get up to 120 when I jump.

[CrazyIvan 0]

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I don't know about you, but it takes me about 12 sec to get up to 120 when I jump.

Ok..if it's INSTANTLY then he's right, but since the post focus on surviving a fall the 120-0 it's more accurate.

__________________________________________
Blue Skies and May the Force be with you.

[mr2mk1g 10]

accepted, was just being anal

[ifics 0]

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I had one of those "chute didn't open" dreams last night, and when I woke up, I started to wonder if I could live when I hit the ground....

I have had dreams of my main messing up and then I see my reserve, my reserve in my dreams is always as big as a bus though for some reason. I think its our actual and subconscious fears playing out in our dreams. I have had lots of vivid dreams about things I think of during the day. Might help you react faster when it happens, who knows. Anyone else have dreams like this?

[Casch 0]

Ooops, I guess that's what I get for posting so late at night. Oh well. But yeah, either way you're dead...

Hmm, I want a car with enough power to kill me just from acceleration now that would be cool

[Canuck278 0]

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Hmm, I want a car with enough power to kill me just from acceleration now that would be cool

Any car can do that...just stand 50ft down the road in front of it as it accelerates

Steve
Therapy is expensive, popping bubble wrap is cheap.

[Casch 0]

hehe Very true, but you know what I meant

[Vertifly 0]

:

[michaelflying 0]

I normally get up dust myself off and start walking back to the hangar in my dreams like that.

www.skydivekzn.co.za

[Tonto 1]

No.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[mr2mk1g 10]

you like those one liners dont you tonto, thats gotta be the third I've seen from you in a week.

"can i set my cypres off..." "no"
"can i survive..." "no"
"can two use one..." "no"

Whilst I wouldn't argue that in essence you are right... its funny that everyone elses answer is "yes, under certain circumstances" and then back them up with real life accounts of them actually happening

[Squeak 17]

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No.

t

Umm actually I think a russian guy DID, he fell from altitude and went through some trees and survived, he was Russian military I think?

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[rehmwa 2]

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***but since the post focus on surviving a fall the 120-0 it's more accurate.

Reference frames can also be moving as long as they aren't accelerating. So this also applies and the physics still works. (i.e., you moving relative to the earth is -120 MPH, the earth moving towards you is +120 MPH = the effect is the same.)

I don't remember who was being anal, but in contemporary reference frames, we fall 'DOWN' so the deceleration would be from -120 to 0 mph in a 'very short time'.

Do I win a prize?

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[champu 1]

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I had one of those "chute didn't open" dreams last night, and when I woke up, I started to wonder if I could live when I hit the ground....

Is this the first dream you've had of this nature?