Stalling plane nosedives & nearly hits skydivers

Extraordinary footage shows the moment skydivers narrowly avoided being hit in mid-air by their plane as it spun out of control seconds after they jumped from it.

The dramatic moment was filmed by videographer Bernard Janse van Rensburg as a group of skydivers jump from the aircraft over Mosselbay, South Africa, on Thursday, October 14.

As they jump, the plane stalls 16,000ft in the air, its twin propellers stop and it spins out of control before plummeting towards the ground, narrowly avoiding a major collision with the falling sky divers who are preparing to join up in formation.

The clip, filmed by a videographer with the skilled skydiving team, shows the group preparing to jump from the plane.

One skydiver opens the door and the team gets into position to carry out the skydive formation.

After a few moments, Mr van Rensburg moves onto the tail of the aircraft as other skydivers start making their way out.

Initially, eight divers and the videographer jump from the aircraft which instantly starts to go out of control and its twin propellers can be seen stopping.

As the skydivers begin plummeting to the ground, the plane starts nosediving and spinning around in circles.

It falls below the divers before levelling off directly underneath three members of the team who appear to be falling towards its path.

The pilot managed to regain control of the aircraft and landed it safely.

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[alanmonaghan]

Hi everyone, as an ex employee of this operation I'd like to clarify a few things. It's a good exercise to talk and speculate about an event but even better when the facts become known and the whole thing becomes a valuable learning experience.

Firstly the pilot is a very experienced and competent skydive pilot. He knows his theory about aerodynamic stalls and spins and practices these during licence renewal tests with an instructor who has more than 25, 000 hours experience, stalls/spin safety are also one of his passion topics.

Secondly for the benefit of those outside of aviation, the propellers do not stop. This is a purely aerodynamic event and the word stall refers to the airflow over the wings and nothing to do with the engines or propellers. The fact that they look like they stop is a separate effect due to the camera frame rate closely matching the rpm of the props. The Sun are classically guilty here of talking nonsense in the description and the general public are once again left to take the word of an incorrect report.

For aviators/pilots/enthusiasts it's important to understand the conditions of flight in a skydive drop like this. 1 - the aircraft needs to fly slow with low power to allow the skydivers to physically stand outside the aircraft in the airflow. (Think of trying to walk in gale force winds). This low speed is why the flaps are in the approach position. 2 - the skydivers themselves create drag, this is all on the left side of the aircraft by the door at the rear of the plane. This results in asymmetric drag and a rear centre of gravity which sets up the conditions favouring a basic stall. I.e. high nose attitude (or angle of attack), low and decreasing airspeed. The skydivers are also spoiling and blanking the airflow over the elevator (back wing). Which reduces control authority by the pilot, particularly in pitch. The rear cofg and extra asymmetric drag results in a nose pitch up moment (increasing angle of attack) and decreasing speed. The blanking of the elevator reduces pilots ability to counter the pitching up moment. The asymmetric drag requires cross control inputs to maintain straight flight. At the stall (critical angle of attack) the aircraft is already in a condition favouring a spin and the recovery cannot be initiated until the skydivers release from the aircraft and the cofg returns to normal or forward, drag is reduced, elevator authority restored and full power can be used.

You can see the aircraft autoritate followed by 1 spin rotation before the spin is stopped. Considering all the conditions leading to the spin and the shock factor I think the pilot did very well to recover smartly. A secondary stall and minor spin occurs as the engines spool up to full power at different rates while the wings are still at or near critical angle of attack.From there the recovery is straight forward and the aircraft lands with no damage and nobody injured. A hugely successful outcom I'd say. You can see different examples of this scenario in skydiving ops. Some unfortunately result in tragedy.

[theyoutubeguy]

"Don't worry guys, I'm sure the planes fine, now let's get in formation"

[sirbillyclean]

Most people can't take decent footage of anything let alone mid skydive take perfectly framed footage. Nice

[reecedoyle]

That is some of the best footage I have ever seen

[edwardwu]

Holy crap, props to that pilot for handling that stall like an absolute champion. They knew exactly what was happening, kept calm, and was already correcting within the first rotation. Absolutely textbook

[jackygomes]

The soundtrack completely removed the whole tension of the video

[owenjc]

The propellers didn't "Stop", it was the refresh rate of the camera matching with the speed of the propellers. For people who are outside of aviation, a STALL is when the angle of attack is too high and this is called 'Critical Angle Of Attack'. In very simple terms this means the wings cannot generate enough lift and therefor the aircraft falls. The engines were still running. (For people outside of aviation)

[maurices]

Good old Sun - never let facts get in the way of a story

[baconcrusader]

Sorry but I think that pilot knew exactly what he was doing, knew exactly where he was and where the skydivers were !!
So the title I feel is a little off the mark tbh.

[PacificAirwave]

And the pilot is STILL trying to un-clench that seat-cushion. It could be with him for weeks!

[starburst]

0:52 did someone else just fall out of the plane?!

[Jesse-B]

Even to a layman it's obvious the propellers don't "stop", which makes me wonder what sort of morons The Sun is hiring.

[sergemoskalyuk]

This is the problem of jumps from small airplanes. It cannot stand such big center of mass move inflight and stalls.
It was similar incident in Russia recently. But more tragic. Ony few survivors.

[GLee-lkrf]

0:52 that must have been insanely scary for that dude

[obananamano]

every pilot learns and perfects spin recovery, this was textbook

[PsytanicA]

Aw! even the plane wanted to join in on the fun. At least no one got hurt, but still would of been epic to see the plane have it's own parachute.

[tjveld]

Being on the edge of stalling is how you can recognize a great skydive pilot. However, this pilot took it to the next

[kingcrumpet]

The Sun's description of this video is truly atrocious.

[gartut]

Plane was literally no where near them he banked over then rolled

[floridanews]

I never understood jumping out of a perfectly good plane! Oh wait, nevermind JUMP! 🤣