Fortunately, no one was hurt in the event, which happened from an Air Force C-130 cargo jet over Italy. This is because the unnamed soldier’s reserve expanded just before impact.
According to Task & Purpose, the video was shot at the Juliet Drop Zone in Italy, which is a location utilized by the Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade.
The paratrooper’s primary chute doesn’t open, and he grows frantic as he falls to the earth in a 22-second clip that was originally posted on TikTok.
Fortunately, he releases his reserve just in time to avoid being hit, and he seems to be okay.
A heart-stopping video showed a US Army paratrooper free-falling through the sky for at least 15 seconds after his parachute fails
The incident, which took place from an Air Force C-130 transport plane flying over Italy, was luckily not deadly as the unidentified soldier’s reserve inflated seconds before he hit the ground
The clip was taken in what’s known as the Juliet Drop Zone in Italy, which is used by the Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade
The US Army and the 173rd Airborne has not reported any recent incidents of significant injury or any incidents like this. It’s unclear who took the video, though it has gone viral on both Twitter and TikTok.
Army jumpers are taught in training that they’re supposed to open reserve parachutes six seconds after they’ve realized the main chute won’t open.
St. Maj. Jeffrey Mellinger, a former freefall instructor with the Army, told Task & Purpose: ‘That reserve parachute takes about 400 feet to open, and so that’s a pretty substantial amount of time when you are coming to the ground as quick as that person was. There’s a reason they call this hazardous duty.’
The jumper also did not have enough air to open his reserve chute until the very last moment.
The US Army and the 173rd Airborne has not reported any recent incidents of significant injury or any incidents like this. It’s unclear who took the video, though it has gone viral on both Twitter and TikTok
Army jumpers are taught in training that they’re supposed to open reserve parachutes six seconds after they’ve realized the main chute won’t open
Jumps like this are rare, according to Mellinger, because the Army takes so many precautions to avoid moments like the one in the video.
He noted that an individual malfunction is ‘not rare but it’s unusual, it’s really unusual.’
He also pointed out that thousands of people go through courses like this every year and don’t happen, except in scary, sporadic cases like the one in the video, which has nearly 90,000 likes on TikTok.